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The 

SAFE SIDE 

A Theistic Refutation of the Divinity of Christ 

BY 

RICHARD M. MITCHELL 

I I 



// any, man can convince me and bring home to me tliat I do not think 
or act aright, gladly will I change ; for I search after truth, by which man 
never yet was harmed. But he is harmed who abideth on still in his decep- 
tion and ignorance.— MARCUS AURELIUS 



' PUBLISHED BY 

RICHARD M. MITCHELL 
NEW YORK 



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Copyrighted, 1893. 



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CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Guiding Nature of the Mental Faculties, . 15 

CHAPTER n. 
Natural Depravity, 33 

CHAPTER in. 
The Reasoning and Religious Faculties, . 59 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Christian Religion 71 

CHAPTER V. 
The Witnesses and Imagination, . . 91 

CHAPTER VI. 
John the Baptist, 108 

CHAPTER Vll. 
Cause of the Crucifixion, . . . .142 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Teachings of Christ, . . ' . .154 

CHAPTER IX. 

JOSEPHUS, , 176 



4 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. 

PAGE 
JOSEPHUS AND JeSUS OF TiBERIAS, . . . 202 

CHAPTER XL 
St. Paul, 222 

CHAPTER Xn. 
St. Paul and the Ascension, .... 242 

CHAPTER Xm. 
Faith 260 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Fourth Gospel, 288 

CHAPTER XV. 
The Question as Met by Modern Authors, . 322 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Inertia of Ideas, 347 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Conversion, 377 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Worldliness, 403 

CHAPTER XIX. 
The Safe Side 423 

CHAPTER XX. 
Immortality, 444 

CHAPTER XXI. 
Supernatural Supervision, .... 461 



PREFACE. 



/COMPLICATED questions in politics or religion 
^ are generally such only through the great in- 
terests that grow up under long accepted ideas and 
become too powerful to be suppressed when time 
has demonstrated that those ideas were founded in 
error. The questions themselves are usually sim- 
ple enough ; in fact there is generally no question 
except as to how to act on new ideas in spite of 
the opposition of those interested in customs es- 
tablished by old ones. Hence our natural assump- 
tion that the opposition to religious or political 
reform is at all times a vicious and ignorant one, 
is not true. The opponents are often influential, 
intelligent, and prosperous. Even then, however, 
it would not be difficult to overcome them if the 
evil to be corrected were made conspicuous by 
isolation; but erroneous ideas are associated with 
so much that is true that the mind is misled and 
their separation becomes a difficult task. 

Bad principles are formidable only when they 



6 PREFACE. 

are but relatively few as compared with the good 
principles of prominent men. Though the truth 
may predominate, the ultimate result of error is 
as serious as it would be if unmixed with truth. 
The slight thread of poison in the food will event- 
ually kill, the slight deviation of the ship from 
the true course will guide it to the rocks, and so 
in the principles governing our actions, a slight 
smothering of doubt on the part of some, a slight 
suppression of small items of fact on the part of 
others, and a slight fostering of personal interest 
on the part of still others will result in the under- 
lying principles becoming wholly corrupt, even 
though employed by a body of men whose intel- 
ligence and social positions are most exalted. 

The mind is so constructed that erroneous gov- 
erning ideas will sooner or later work themselves 
to the front and become a bar to further progress 
until they are corrected. 

The Christian religion supplies many illustra- 
tions of this. The belief that Christ was the Son 
of God involved the affirmation of certain virtues 
and sins that are such only within the Christian 
system. Those false virtues alone are harmless, 
but they work most serious injury in the loss of 
that which they intercept, and it may be shown 
that just so far as they control the public mind 



PREFACE. 7 

they are a bar to much needed social and political 
reform. 

But the source whence those pretended virtues 
emanate has been denominated "the truth," and 
unquestioning belief is demanded without inves- 
tigation. This is done by the bitterness of censure 
of those who presume to question those so-called 
truths and who demand from the Bible the same 
responsibility that is attached to other books. It 
is true a few leading churchmen are alive to the 
confession of weakness which this position presents 
and pretend to challenge investigation upon both 
sides of the question. Mr. Beecher said of Chris- 
tianity that " what can be swept away ought to be 
swept away ;" but the great body of believers have 
been taught and still believe that works inimical 
to the divinity of Christ must not be read at all. 
Though claiming so much for the Bible and Christ, 
Christians, as a rule, pride themselves on their 
exclusion of all knowledge of those facts that tend 
to disprove the inspiration of the one and the di- 
vinity of the other. 

If the Bible be the word of God, it is an insult 
to Him to demand intellectual concessions in read- 
ing it that would not in other works be conceded 
to a child. That spirit which we are directed to 
employ when searching the Scriptures should follow, 



8 PREFACE. 

not precede, its reading. If that spirit can be 
possessed before reading the Bible then we are 
not indebted to the Bible for it and it becomes our 
obvious duty to inquire into the circumstances 
which caused that book and its inseparable system 
to be attached to the natural religious feelings. 
The desired effect is produced only by that spirit, 
and to discover its source and proper exercise is a 
truly religious study. 

So very much has been claimed for Christianity 
that many believe its overthrow would be a mis- 
fortune even though its doctrines be not true. But 
those many wide claims compose an important 
part of its system, and its support in our day is 
largely derived through mistaken ideas as to its 
supposed virtues. As the believer's mind be- 
comes awake to the actual truth he will the more 
clearly discover the evil effects that have attended 
that religion. Its name is given a wider meaning 
than naturally belongs to it, so that large numbers 
do not realize that God and religion can be and 
are quite distinct from the question of the divinity 
of Christ and of the doctrines appertaining thereto. 
Christianity has reference only to the latter, though 
falsely assumed to be the sole representative of 
the former. Christians are so thoroughly imbued 
with ideas of this nature that few of them can 



PREFACE. 9 

realize that the entire Christian system may be 
swept away and yet a pure religion and profound 
veneration for God remain. 

The attention of Christians ought to be arrested 
by the solemn fact that the first step in worship- 
ing Christ consists in defaming God. It cannot 
be shown how Christ is a savior without represent- 
ing God to have made a partial failure. The 
united voice of Christendom throughout the Chris- 
tian era proclaiming that God was circumvented 
by an independent and inferior power, constitutes 
the greatest insult that man has ever offered to his 
Creator, and that insult has borne its natural fruit 
and been the greatest misfortune that mankind 
has ever known. 

It is human nature to promptly protect our in- 
terests. We do so involuntarily. This natural 
disposition has necessarily been an element in de- 
fense of Christianity and undesignedly its worldly 
interests rather than its dogmas have been the 
base of Christian exertions. The church has been 
wavering in its rules for salvation, but in its 
earthly interest it has been constant, consistent, 
and prosperous. Only therein has it been success- 
ful. The immensity of that success has filled the 
eye and obscured any opinion we might otherwise 
have had as to the usefulness of that religion. 



10 PREFACE. 

Belief in the system is what is wanted rather than 
especial devotion to Christ and the Bible. The 
church promptly sets aside the wishes of Christ 
when they conflict with its interest. His two most 
distinct commands are utterly ignored, and if those 
commands were as the word of God there is prob- 
ably not a true Christian in the world. 

Among the earliest exhibitions of mechanical 
ingenuity in the Middle Ages were certain inven- 
tions of Christians used to torture other Christians 
for not believing that to be true which all now 
know to be false. A knowledge of the truth w^ould 
have prevented those cruelties and did at last sup- 
press them. The rule here, as everywhere, has 
held good, that truth and happiness go hand in 
hand, even though the truth demolishes Christian 
dogmas. The progress of the church since has 
been marked, not by an augmentation of its creeds, 
but by a curtailment of them. *' Its new truths 
have been but discoveries of its old falsehoods," 
and the prominence of its leaders in our day is 
measured by the extent of their widening dis- 
belief. 

The church has always combated whatever con- 
flicted with the Bible, regardless of all other con- 
siderations, and in so doing its influence has often 
been given on the side of ignorance. As yet hu- 



PREFACE. 1 1 

man progress has been the work of but a few 
minds as compared to the whole population. In 
astronomy, for instance, the number of those to 
whom we are indebted for what is now known in 
that science is very small as compared to the peo- 
ple living in their times, far less than i per cent. 
But the church has done much to hold back that 
study. It at one time made it dangerous for a 
man to say that the world was round — a fact we 
first learned through that science — and, though 
that truth has in time over-ridden the so-called 
truth it disproved, it does not follow that the 
church did not retard that science by its opposi- 
tion. We do not nor cannot know what valuable 
truths and what progress mankind might have 
reached but for the power of the church in sup- 
pressing investigation in that which conflicted 
with its own support. 

Wonderful discoveries have of late been made 
in exploring the works of God, many of which 
directly contradict statements in the so-called word 
of God, and the conflict is increasing yearly and 
has caused a divergence too wide for reconciliation. 
Both cannot be true. If the Bible were the word 
of God the developments of time would the more 
and more have confirmed such to be the fact, nor 
could its history be traced through the natural 



12 PREFACE. 

working of the minds of those who originated 
present ideas as to its sacredness. But time is 
disclosing its errors, and in a knowledge of human 
nature nearly every step and sentiment that 
actuated those originators and leaders may be 
accounted for, even to the causes that led to the 
prediction of the coming of the Messiah at that 
particular time and the circumstances that led to 
proclaiming Christ to be that Messiah. Nor were 
the relations between the various characters men- 
tioned in the New Testament such as have been 
represented. 

The New Testament discloses why it is that, 
after the gospels, just two-thirds of that book is 
taken up with records of the sentiments and move- 
ments of a man who, if he ever saw Christ, saw 
him with the eyes of an enemy, who looked on ap- 
provingly when Stephen was stoned to death, and 
who quarreled with Peter, James, and other 
Apostles, while but one-ninth of that space is de- 
voted to the sayings of Christ's chief apostle and 
his successor after the crucifixion, and whose sup- 
pressed gospel was virtually the original New 
Testament and must have been the foundation for 
church doctrines for more than a hundred years. 
Also the natural succession of circumstances that 
led to the production of the Gospel of John may 



PREFACE. 13 

be clearly traced. Every step in the formation 
of the Christian religion may be accounted for in 
the natural operation of the human mind. 

Christianity surpasses any nation in power and 
number of officers, and it costs vast sums, which 
are an idle waste if its doctrines are erroneous, 
and it continues to cause political trouble wherever 
it exists. If, therefore, Christ was not the Son of 
God and if all the doctrines founded on that sup- 
position be false, it is as important to discover 
those facts as it is to know the contrary if they be 
true. The exact truth is what is wanted and to 
obtain it the first step is to refuse to give to the 
Bible the deference that can be felt only by its 
most confirmed believers. The spirit with which 
we are required to search the Scriptures is not the 
spirit we should employ in searching for the truth. 
We should be as intent upon exposing its errors as 
its truth and should demand of it greater accuracy 
instead of less than is demanded of other books. 

It is a theory within the Christian system that 
their doctrines have grown up under eighteen 
hundred years of constant contention and that they 
have demolished a world of opposition by the over- 
powering evidence of their truth. But this is a 
deception growing out of the vast amount of con- 
tention among themselves. They have mistaken 



14 PREFACE. 

much of their own loud noise for that of enemies 
who did not exist. Their frail defenses have 
stood, not because they were impregnable, but 
because comparatively no effort was made to de- 
stroy them. But little has been written against 
the whole system and most of that the church has 
successfully suppressed. 

Nevertheless, its weakness is being fast exposed, 
not by the efforts of concerted opponents, but by 
the widening difference between the ideas of God 
as drawn out by His works and the ideas of God 
as set forth by the writers of the Bible. There 
have been few as yet to tell of the many evils of 
that system, though they are most serious, and it 
is time that they be investigated, not with a spirit 
of superstitious fear, but with a confidence in our 
own judgment and that in accepting each little 
item of fact which may be found there is no 
danger, for God is on the side of truth. 



THE SAFE SIDE. 



CHAPTER I. 

GUIDING NATURE OF THE MENTAL FACULTIES. 

John Stuart Mill says: "A true psychology is the indis- 
pensable scientific basis of morals, of politics, of the sci- 
ence and art of education ; the difficulties of metaphysics 
lie at the root of all science ; those difficulties can only be 
quieted by being resolved, and until they are resolved, 
positively if possible, but at any rate negatively, we are 
never assured that any human knowledge, even physical, 
stands on solid foundation." 

PRELIMINARY to the work in contemplation, 
I desire to call attention to the confining and 
guiding nature of the various mental faculties. 
Our thoughts flow seemingly at our own will, but 
those various faculties confine them in certain 
channels, and the acts they impel us to perform 
are, therefore, of a nature that our Creator in- 
tended we should perform. Our free agency, 
though wide, is nevertheless confined to well-de- 
fined limits, within which alone happiness can be 
secured. We do not notice the loss of liberty 



l6 THE SAFE SIDE. 

caused by some of the mental faculties, simply 
because our ease of mind is obtained only through 
following their dictation. We act as our hopes 
and feelings dictate, but why those hopes and 
feelings were brought into existence is a question 
to which spe ial attention is here invited. 

The varying theories of metaphysicians as to 
the number and functions of those faculties need 
not be dwelt upon. Sir William Hamilton refers 
to the different classifications by different philos- 
ophers as being numerous and contradictory, and 
no classification is directly given in his published 
lectures, though he refers to many and possibly all 
of the faculties into which he believed the mind 
to be divided. He was regarded at the time of 
his death, thirty years ago, as the most learned 
metaphysician of his time, and hence those lec- 
tures, coupled with John Stuart Mill's examination 
of them, will necessarily give the most advanced, 
though opposing, ideas on this subject. 

The evolution theory is directly connected with 
this science, and necessarily all writers upon that 
subject have much to say of the mind; but, while 
the writings of metaphysicians are more particu- 
larly with reference to its phenomena, the latter 
class of writers deal with its development, and 
in either case they are outside of and above the 
scope of this work. So far as I have anything to 
say of the mind, it will be of its workings, what 
thoughts certain faculties lead us to, and how in 
some instances we attribute acts to faculties that 



GUIDING NATURE OF MENTAL FACULTIES. 1/ 

took little or no part in them. It is human nature 
as it now is, and not a question as to how that na- 
ture was developed, nor as to how the mystery of 
thought can be accounted for. 

Darwin directly and Hamilton and others in- 
directly admit that no classification of the mental 
faculties has been agreed upon, and writers usually 
refer to but the few faculties necessary to illus- 
trate their ideas and sustain their theories. I feel 
licensed by this to mention a few not named by 
those distinguished writers, particularly as the 
presence of such faculties seems to be quite gen- 
erally conceded. Even if it shall eventually prove 
true that the partial division herein given is not 
wholly correct, it still will not invalidate the ideas 
offered. It is enough that it is admitted that the 
mind is divided into numerous faculties and that 
there is no question as to the existence of those 
most referred to. 

The affections are the most conspicuous illustra- 
tion of the guiding nature of those faculties. A 
careful analysis of our love for our children, for 
instance, will show that our feelings have been 
made especially sensitive to their needs, and the 
power that holds us to our duties to them is 
measured by the degree of their helplessness. 
Even the mother's caresses are necessary, because 
the infant needs that outward demonstration of 
affection to realize the existence of that affection, 
and the child also needs the confidence and mental 
rest that love secures to it. By just the degree 



1 8 THE SAFE SIDE. 

that our children are able to take care of themselves 
are we released from care and anxiety for them. 

The Creator has so ordered it that some of the 
lower order of animals have no other care for their 
young than to properly deposit their eggs ; higher 
orders of animals care for their young but a short 
time; and we also are released from anxiety re- 
garding children not our own, our care for them 
being required only in rare instances, and then 
through a different faculty of the mind. We also 
could have been created without especial love for 
our own children, and could in such cases abandon 
them without disturbing our peace of mind. We 
would have been just as happy and our liberties 
would have been greater. 

It was not, therefore, for our own good, but for 
the necessities of the young, that we are made to 
suffer mental agony by and in proportion to any 
neglect of our duties to them. That faculty is 
often too weak in individuals and in some in- 
stances is almost if not entirely absent. Such 
persons can abandon their children without mental 
suffering, and in other countries again marry and 
have children, whom they also abandon. How- 
ever despicable they may be, the fact remains that 
their liberties are greater and their burdens less. 
In the absence of those faculties, such people are 
mental monstrosities, and there are instances 
when, like physical monstrosities — if the truth 
could be known — they should be put to death as 
soon as they are born. 



GUIDING NATURE OF MENTAL FACULTIES. IQ 

The mental faculty of honor also restricts our 
liberties. We do not so regard it, because those 
who, through its deficiency, are enabled to exercise 
those liberties are looked upon with contempt by 
all others. That faculty has far more to do in reg- 
ulating the daily affairs of life than laws have. 
It can be employed only in our dealings with 
others, and its general cultivation is necessarily of 
the greatest importance. An interesting feature 
connected with it consists in this : that the by-laws 
of any association are made by people who at the 
time are under no temptation to violate that faculty, 
and consequently those by-laws exhibit a higher 
degree of honor than is always manifested in the 
average dealings of those who made them. It is, 
therefore, to the public interest that all men be- 
long to some association and be subject to its dis- 
cipline, rather than that each individual should 
be left too much to his own less competent and 
biased interpretations as to his duty. 

The confining and guiding nature of hpnor will 
be the more readily realized by observing that 
whenever that faculty is called up in our inter- 
course with our fellow-men it is because that 
which it demands of us to do is that which our in- 
clinations otherwise would prevent us from doing. 

Respect for public opinion also fills a very im- 
portant duty and is clearly owing to a faculty given 
for that purpose. The public interest is often 
protected by it, as against officers and others who 
otherwise would violate public rights. , Like all 



20 THE SAFE SIDE. 

the mental faculties, its power is not felt until at- 
tempts are made to cross the limits it is intended 
to prescribe. 

These and other indispensable duties could not 
be left for us to discover and discharge by educa- 
tion. On the contrary, our schooling and disci- 
pline is stimulated by those faculties. They are 
with us from birth and form as much a part of our 
creation as our limbs, or eyes, or ears, or other 
organs. Certain duties must be performed and 
certain branches of knowledge promptly obtained ; 
and faculties are given that insure the perform- 
ance of those duties and the acquisition of that 
knowledge, and hence an understanding of the 
duties they lead to will throw light upon our 
Creator's designs regarding our daily life. 

Inasmuch as it is admitted that the mind is di- 
vided into numerous faculties, the question arises 
as to what natural feelings are owing to a faculty 
and what to other causes. If the functions of each 
were as well defined as those just mentioned, it 
would be a simple task to discover the whole, but 
certain characteristics attend certain apparent 
faculties that greatly embarrass this question. 
Memory, for instance, has peculiarities very dif- 
ferent from simple mental powers, like honor, or 
caution, or mathematics. If a man is a good 
mathematician he will be equally so in all branches 
of mathematics to which he gives his attention. 
So with honor, a man will have the same average 
of that power according to his understanding. 



GUIDING NATURE OF MENTAL FACULTIES. 21 

Such variation as those faculties exhibit is of 
slow growth and is owing to their cultivation or 
to changes in their relative power caused by the 
cultivation of others. 

But memory is never equally vStrong upon all 
subjects in any individual. There will be varying 
degrees of power in remembering words, faces, 
colors, etc. There will also be a difference in 
recollecting facts, according to the nature of the 
subject. The service of memory is in constant 
demand, and its importance and peculiarities are 
so great as to have first drawn the attention of 
metaphysicians from Aristotle to the present time. 
Nevertheless, in the sense that we have a faculty 
of honor, or caution, or love of our children, there 
is, I contend, no faculty of memory. 

Memory is simply the action of the faculties 
themselves, and will be good or bad in an indi- 
vidual according as he may be deficient or superior 
in any one of them. There is the same difference 
between other mental faculties and memory that 
there is between muscle and strength or between 
the storage capacity of a room and the articles 
stored within it. Thus, a man who remembers 
figures well, but does not remember names (or 
words), is one who is good in mathematics and 
poor in language. Or memory of faces or locali- 
ties will be according to the faculties of form, 
locality, etc. 

Recollection of facts is a branch of memory that 
may be better or worse than recollection of figures 



22 THE SAFE SIDE. 

or words. We remember best that which inter- 
ests us most and our interest is measured by the 
extent of the faculty called into action by the 
subject. It is great and possibly useless labor to 
try to perfect ourselves in that for which the re- 
quired mental power is largely wanting. No in- 
terest will be felt in a topic that calls up such ab- 
sent power and what is then learned will soon be 
forgotten. But great interest will be taken in that 
which calls into action the powers in which we 
excel and the facts then learned will be remem- 
bered. 

The ability to distinguish color supplies a fair 
illustration of this, for that power is dependent 
upon a mental faculty, a fact which seems too 
frequently to be overlooked. More than a hundred 
years ago, Hume wrote: 

Were I not afraid of appearing too philosoph- 
ical, I should remind my readers of the famous 
doctrines supposed to be fully proven in modern 
times, " that taste and colors and all other sensible 
qualities lie not in the bodies, but merely in the 
senses." The case is the same with beauty and 
deformity, virtue and vice. 

The mental faculty of color is so well developed 
in some that they can match any shade of color 
from memory, and the extent of that faculty in 
any individual may be measured by his powers of 
memory in that respect. With some persons this 
deficiency is so great that they can remember no 
colors whatever and are consequently color blind. 



GUIDING NATURE OF MENTAL FACULTIES. 23 

Color blindness has no connection with the organs 
of vision, it being simply a deficiency in the men- 
tal faculty of color. 

Sudden loss of memory in some directions, while 
it remains good in others, but indicates a w^eaken- 
ing or possible paralysis of a faculty. Very old 
people remember that which occurred in their 
vigor, but are less able to hold in their weakening 
minds the events of their old age. Memory, 
therefore, is only the action of the faculties them- 
selves and will be good or bad according to the 
degree of their varying powers. An individual, 
consequently, can judge as to the extent of any 
one of his faculties by noting the tendency of his 
mind to dwell upon the subject appertaining to 
that faculty, and his memory therein. 

Courage, also, is a mental power having char- 
acteristics peculiar to itself alone. We certainly 
have the very important faculty of caution, and to 
neutralize it with one of an opposite tenor would 
be equivalent to dispensing with both. Never- 
theless, both are found in high degree in the same 
person. Headley, in his Life of Napoleon, rep- 
resents the Emperor, whose courage is unques- 
tioned, to have been one of the most cautious of 
generals, and records many illustrations in sup- 
port of his assertion. Courage, like memory, is 
not a mental faculty in the sense referred to ; it is 
derived through a combination of some of the most 
desirable mental powers, and, as it has caution to 
contend against, its display has necessarily always 



24 THE SAFE SIDE. 

been looked upon with admiratioil. The com- 
bination that creates courage varies necessarily in 
different individuals, some being quite deficient in 
part of the required powers. (When a woman's 
affections, for instance, form part of the combina- 
tion, she will often exhibit courage to an unsur- 
passed degree, ) Such persons will be irregular in 
their courage, displaying it under certain condi- 
tions and showing a want of it in others. There 
is a false courage, caused by deficiency in caution. 
Such a person will be foolhardy and unnecessarily 
expose himself to danger. 

Those attributes of the mind derived through 
the action of several faculties are usually more 
conspicuous than those gained through any one 
faculty and have received correspondingly more 
attention. The combinations and single faculties 
have all been treated alike, to the great confusion 
of this important science. It is as though we had 
regarded the muscles of the arm, the arm itself, 
and its strength as three separate things, all 
standing upon equal footing and each capable of 
exertion without the others. Too much attention 
cannot be given to those combinations, but they 
should be recognized as such. They are quite 
numerous, also, and include memory, courage, 
imagination, conscience, and others. 

The varying degrees of power of the various 
faculties in different individuals cause combina- 
tions peculiar to each, and in those varying powers 
and combinations lie all the different intellectual 



GUIDING NATURE OF MENTAL FACULTIES. 25 

abilities exhibited not only in man, but in animals. 
The range of such intelligence as animals possess 
is necessarily narrow because their faculties are 
less in number; but they have widely varying de- 
grees of intelligence, a fact that has come under 
the observation of most people in their experience 
with horses, dogs, etc. Darwin refers to the di- 
versity of mental faculties in animals, and says 
that " all who have had charge of menageries ad- 
mit this fact and we see it plainly in our dogs and 
other domestic animals." 

Men are distinguished or are especially com- 
petent in their occupation by a fortunate combina- 
tion of well-developed mental faculties, or rather 
by not having one or more deficiencies that de- 
stroy such combination. No knowledge an indi- 
vidual can possess is so valuable to himself as a 
knowledge of his own mental powers and deficien- 
cies, a knowledge of the latter being much the 
more difficult to obtain. We may go through life 
lamentably crippled by the want of a certain men- 
tal power and never have the least vSuspicion of 
that fact. We can more readily find out those in 
which we excel, though there, too, one may be 
misled. 

It is important when constructing an engine to 
have every part not unnecessarily strong and yet 
strong enough to sustain the work. But the mind 
by comparison is often out of proportion in this 
respect, some faculties being too strong in propor- 
tion to others. This does not conflict with the fact 



26 THE SAFE SIDE. 

that all mental faculties are good; the trouble 
even in such cases is the inability of one faculty 
to fully meet the undue requirements of another. 
There is also a broad distinction between such 
evils as an unsupported excelling quality pro- 
duces and those caused by deficiencies. The evils 
in the first condition fall only upon the possessor 
and possibly those dependent upon him, but the 
evils caused by the latter are felt by others. Some 
of the mental powers cannot be too strong, while 
others, such as caution, love of property, selfish- 
ness, etc. , can be so disproportionally large as to 
be a fault. 

These two last-mentioned qualities are very 
necessary, and their effects, in some respects, are 
the exact opposite of those usually attributed to 
them. Particularly is this the case with the love 
of money. It is a faculty more frequently par- 
tially wanting than found in excess. It fills quite 
the same duty as to property that caution does as 
to life. Those deficient in it too easily feel them- 
selves rich, their energies slacken with slight 
prosperity and they will indulge in expenses they 
cannot afford, and are often thus kept in poverty. 
Very ignorant people in some instances carry this 
so far that they will not work when they have a 
few dollars. Having little reason they look but 
little into the future and only find incentive to 
labor by their immediate pressing wants. The 
love of money fills the same duty that all the 
other faculties do in their respective fields. It is 



GUIDING NATURE OF MENTAL FACULTIES. 2/ 

especial wisdom that cannot be left to discovery 
alone. It takes the place of forethought in pro- 
viding for future wants by stimulating to further 
exertion after all immediate wants are supplied. 
It does not insure wealth to the possessor, nor does 
its deficiency always beget poverty. Its absence 
leads to shiftlessness and want of enterprise 
through lessened incentive to further efforts. 

On the other hand, men whose other deficiencies 
were such ^s to have made them criminals have 
been made comparatively respectable citizens by 
this mental characteristic, as fear of losing their 
property restrains them from many criminal acts. 
With accumulation of property a feeling of re- 
sponsibility is awakened, together with an interest 
in local government. Criminals will be guilty of 
pecuniary crimes in proportion to the extent of 
their wants; consequently the sooner they are out 
of money the sooner will their temptations come. 
The absence of a natural love of property will 
bring about this condition frequently, and hence 
they will be the greater criminals by adding it to 
their other deficiencies. Too slight an apprecia- 
tion of the value of money is the root of more evil 
than the opposite extreme. There are more peo- 
ple who should be taught to have more care and 
love of property than there are of those who should 
be warned against avarice. 

But those who have this faculty in excess will 
find that it overreaches and deprives them of the 
very object for which money is desirable. When 



28 . THE SAFE SIDE. 

it pains the mind more to part with the money 
that will supply a certain convenience than there 
is pleasure experienced in the possession of that 
convenience, such a person will deny himself the 
convenience and retain his money. In this he 
does not differ from a man who endures the same 
deprivation through poverty. In the one instance 
it is an absence of money, in the other it is the 
absence of the power to part with it. The effect 
is the same as poverty. Through weak digestive 
organs a man may starve to death though sur- 
rounded with food. So with the love of money, 
when too strong or unsupported by other faculties, 
it condemns a man to all the effects of a life of 
poverty, regardless of the wealth he may attain. 

The origin of money has long been an unsolved 
enigma. Within itself gold is of but little value, 
and to have elevated it to its present usages im- 
plies a degree of intelligence above the capacity 
of those living in the age in which money origi- 
nated, for in the most remote historical period it 
is seen that public ideas regarding gold as a circu- 
lating medium were quite the same as they are at 
the present time. Who could have devised so wise 
a scheme and how were the people brought to 
general acceptance of it? The latter would be by 
far the more difficult problem of the two. Even 
in our time, if money were still unknown, it would 
be an advanced idea to originate such a system and 
it would be impossible id introduce it into general 
practice. People would not be induced to part 



GUIDING NATURE OF MENTAL FACULTIES. 29 

with their property for a trifling quantity of that 
which they had previously known as of little 
value, even though they fully appreciated the 
great advantages of the proposed change. 

Dr. Adam Smith, in The WeaUh of Nations, 
devotes a chapter to the origin of money, but he 
simply adopts the common supposition that at 
some time in the past it was conceived in the in- 
terest of commerce and brought into practice by 
common consent. But our ideas of the value of 
gold are stamped upon the mind with far greater 
power than could be done through resolution alone. 
Those ideas have two features that could not pos- 
sibly be suddenly introduced in this or any other 
age: One is that we regard gold itself as the 
choicest of property, and this we could not do of 
our own volition; the other is that it is so prized 
universally — even by the most ignorant — through- 
out the civilized world. 

Inasmuch, therefore, as the wisdom did not ex- 
ist that could invent money and as even if invented 
it could in no age have been brought into general 
use, it follows that ideas of the value of gold must 
be as old as any ideas of private property. The 
conclusion is unavoidable that gold has been re- 
garded as the most valuable property as long as 
there has been any private ownership whatever. 
This necessarily takes us back, not only to the 
prehistoric period, but to a time when man was 
but slightly above the highest order of lower ani- 
mals, and hence the question as to the origin of 



30 THE SAFE SIDE. 

money is narrowed to the simple question as to 
what turned those savages' attention to gold and 
gave it value in their eyes. 

Buckle' has shown how invariably all apparently 
inexplicable phenomena have acted upon and cul- 
tivated superstition, and he lays it down, as one 
of four propositions which he has established, 
" that the progress of mankind depends upon the 
success with which the laws of phenomena are in- 
vestigated and on the extent to which a knowledge 
of those laws is diffused." This does not conflict 
with the fact that in the remote past there was 
a time when even a low degree of superstition 
marked the highest degree of human advancement. 
The conditions through which we have been de- 
veloped are like varying heights which we first 
labor to attain and then labor to leave behind. 

Superstition and religion differ only in this, 
that one is an ignorant, the other a wise use of 
the same faculty ; consequently as long as there 
has been superstition there have been a religious 
faculty and ideas of a supernatural power. There 
is no evidence that any particular faculty was given 
us only for use in some far distant age in the 
future; the guiding nature of our faculties is im- 
portant in all ages and each must necessarily be 
instrumental in human advancement. Originally 
the religious faculty could produce but a low de- 
gree of superstition, and whatever service it then 



History of Civilization in England. 



GUIDING NATURE OF MENTAL FACULTIES. 31 

rendered must have been accomplished through 
such superstition. When a ship goes to sea the 
pilot is at first governed in his course by objects 
on land. He does not expect or wish to reach 
these objects, but simply employs them in defining 
his proper course. We have been guided by the 
religious faculty in the same way. Through 
superstition men's minds have been made to dwell 
upon that which they otherwise would not have 
thought of, and this in turn has led to results that 
would have been reached in no other way. 

In ancient times gold was necessarily found upon 
the surface of the ground in a few places, and in 
certain rare instances a bowlder of many pounds 
weight would be found. To those savages the 
enormous weight of such bowlder as compared to 
its size would cause it to seem to be pinned to the 
earth with supernatural power, and this, coupled 
with its bright color, would promptly attract their 
attention and excite their astonishment and super- 
stition. The rarity of gold would prevent those 
savages from becoming too familiar with its 
weight, which at all times would seem supernat- 
ural, while at the same time it would cause them 
to preserve and treasure whatever particles of it 
they might find. This familiarized them with 
gold and led in time to their working it into orna- 
ments and it probably constituted quite their first 
articles of personal property. Thus it was that 
through superstition gold probably took first rank 
in the human mind as to value and it thus became 



32 THE SAFE SIDE. 

a convenient article of barter, and this led in many- 
ages to its being traded in by weight and finally, 
with advancing civilization, to its being coined 
into money. Silver at the same time would be 
undergoing the same changes, its relative value 
being measured by its greater abundance and less 
astonishing weight. When America was discov- 
ered gold had advanced with the Indians to the 
second stage. 

A writer, whose name and work I cannot now re- 
call, has lately shown that it was probably through 
superstition that men were first familiarized with 
fire and taught its many advantages and uses. In 
the lightning it would seem at times to have come 
direct from God, and they would worship and pre- 
serve it accordingly, a practice that w^as only extin- 
guished with Christianity. Indeed, the practice 
cannot be said to have yet died out, while the 
sanctuary lamp still bums continually before the 
altars of our churches. 



CHAPTER II. 

NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 



EVEN though we are guided by our mental 
faculties, there are, nevertheless, natural 
liars, thieves, murderers, and criminals of every 
sort. In rare instances there v^ill be found one 
capable of committing murder every day of his 
life. Some who have been reared with tender 
care will abandon comfortable homes and loving 
parents and seek the vilest companions and sink 
to the lowest depths of degradation. Some can 
commit these acts without provocation, others with 
but slight provocation, while still others can be 
guilty of them only under considerable temptation. 
They take their downward course, often, under 
the same circumstances and instructions that ele- 
vate others. They seem to be led in their evil 
course by as natural mental tendencies as those 
whose lives are faultless. 

This depraved tendency of some has, from the 
earliest ages, been an element of superstition. 
There seemed no explanation for it except in 
attributing those characteristics to evil spirits. 
Many have erroneously classified those evil-dis- 
posed people and those who are deranged under 
3 



34 THE SAFE SIDE. 

one head and supposed that the different degrees 
of evil disposition, from petty offenses to the most 
violent derangement, simply indicated the differ- 
ent degrees of control that the devil or devils had 
over the individual. It is even probable that the 
idea of good and evil spirits was suggested by this 
wonderful phenomenon. 

But this seeming mystery is clearly accounted 
for by the simple explanation that men are bad 
only from the absence of mental faculties they 
ought to possess. They are not bad because of 
bad faculties, for there are none such ; the facul- 
ties are all good and all wanted, and deficiency in 
any of them is always a misfortune, sometimes 
most disastrously so. The opposite wheels under 
a locomotive are dependent upon each other for 
their position upon the rails ; if one should be in- 
efficient, they would be as great a power to run it 
to destruction as they would be, if properly con- 
structed, to run it on its true course. So with the 
mind, the absence or partial absence of certain 
mental faculties is the sole cause of all evil dis- 
positions and of all crime. 

To realize this, let the reader in his imagination 
violate some one of those natural human feelings. 
Let the parent, for instance, consider abandoning 
his young children. He knows they will be a 
source of expense and trouble to him, and this, 
too, through many years. Let him, therefore, 
consider turning them into the street and ordering 
them to keep away, or let him take them to some 



NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 35 

distant place and abandon them. The power of a 
mental faculty is well illustrated when it is real- 
ized how utterly impossible it is to commit this 
act. No laws that man can make, nor walls that 
he can build, can so surely confine us to certain 
acts and to certain limits as the mental faculties 
do. It is impossible for most people to desert 
their families or commit robbery or murder or 
other crimes, and yet many are guilty of those 
acts, and the power to do so lies in the partial or 
total absence of those faculties and consequent 
feelings that make those crimes impossible with 
others. 

Ignorance so generally accompanies crime that 
some have attributed all crime to it. But good 
though ignorant men have been more numerous 
than criminals. Ignorance most certainly is the 
base of crime. An individual deficient in any 
faculty will be dull in all instances where that 
faculty is required. He cannot be educated upon 
that branch ; he is not only ignorant therein, but 
is constitutionally so, though in other branches he 
may excel and be otherwise well informed. A 
person may also possess in only a moderate degree 
faculties that would keep him from crime if edu- 
cated, but nevertheless his liability to crime lies 
in this moderate deficiency. Most crimes are 
committed by people of this class, and would be 
prevented by education. When the necessary 
faculties are not wanting, the individual will not 
commit crime, even though densely ignorant. 



36 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Color blindness will illustrate the effect of de- 
ficiency in any one faculty. The greater the de- 
ficiency the less is the individual capable of mak- 
ing fine distinctions upon any thing calling forth 
that faculty, until in rare instances a total absence 
leaves him incapable of any sense appertaining to 
the absent faculty. 

Conscience, like memory, is an attribute of the 
mind dependent upon other faculties for its action. 
In the rare instances of a total absence of the facul- 
ty that should have prevented the crime, there will 
be no conscience. As a rule the criminal will not 
be wholly devoid of the faculty violated, and his 
conscience will trouble him correspondingly. 
This is applicable to the minor as well as greater 
offenses and to any faculty that is knowjt to have 
not done its work. The mortification that a man 
feels because of some unintelligent act he may 
have inadvertently committed is the working of 
the same law, which, in the more serious violation 
of certain other faculties, we call conscience. 

This leads us to another law of the mind, which, 
combined with conscience, causes greater misery 
to the guilty than they anticipate; a law that, 
correctly understood, would do much to prevent 
crime. Experience shows that no one faculty can 
be constantly employed. Each must have rest, 
without which most serious consequences will fol- 
low. Ordinarily we can divert our thoughts to 
other subjects when necessary, but, if this is neg- 
lected and our thoughts are permitted to dwell 



NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 37 

too long Upon one subject, a condition is produced 
which is to the mind what inflammation is to the 
body. In such instances we lose the power to 
divert our mind either by turning it upon other 
subjects or by sleep. Such a condition is danger- 
ous, but it is one that the proper discharge of the 
affairs of this life need never call for. 

Temptation is a conflict between two mental 
faculties and is possible only when the weakness 
of one of them admits of the thought of its viola- 
tion. For the time being it pains the mind to 
think of this, but it is then in the individual's 
power to dismiss those thoughts by resisting the 
temptation. But if the faculty is too weak, and 
therefore does not occupy his mind as fully as 
those other faculties whose gratification produced 
the temptation, he will yield and thus violate the 
faculty that should have restrained him from so 
doing. But that which was but a temporary in- 
citement to mental pain under temptation becomes 
a permanent one after yielding to it. The guilty 
person will then find he has partly and in some 
instances wholly lost the power to dismiss those 
painful thoughts which the violation engendered. 
When the offense is not too serious, this enforced 
exercise of the weak faculty is beneficial, as it 
cultivates and increases its power of resistance in 
the future. In this, nature employs the same law 
for the mind that is used for the body : The evil 
stimulates action that effects its cure. In extreme 
cases the body may be too weak to sustain the ef- 



38 THE SAFE SIDE. 

fort, and it isequally so with the mind; in which 
case death on the one hand or derangement on the 
other ensues. 

It is better, of course, that the man should have 
the natural power to resist temptation, but when 
such is not the case the operation of conscience is 
to cultivate that power. It is true that we see 
middle-aged and older men guilty of that of which 
they would not have been guilty when younger. 
But that is not because they have grown worse. 
Men seldom feel the full weight of the cares and 
trials of life until middle age or later, and then 
more fully realize wished-f or advantages and suffer 
temptation that less experience had not drawn out. 
Criminals are usually young men, and their crimes 
and excesses make the average length of their 
lives short. They are constitutional criminals 
through mental deficiencies from birth, which fact 
is soon exposed when they begin to act for them- 
selves. 

The power to divert thoughts from the violated 
faculty is not necessarily lost after yielding 
to temptation, and by persistently turning the 
thoughts to other subjects the individual will lose 
the cultivating effect of conscience and weaken 
his power to resist temptation. John Mason, in 
his work upon Self Knowledge, gave an excellent 
rule bearing upon this point. It was to the effect 
that, when a person is disposed to turn his thoughts 
away from the consequences of some contemplated 
act, instead of so doing he should give that sub- 



NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 39 

ject full and careful consideration. By this course 
the act will usually be seen to be worse than sup- 
posed and the temptation will be resisted. 

Conscience, therefore, is the stimulated exercise 
of a faculty caused by its failure to sustain its 
natural guiding, limiting power. 

Gold could never have been the circulating me- 
dium it is if it were not that it carries with it a 
simple evidence of its purity, that all the ingenuity 
of man has never been able to counterfeit. No 
more plentiful and cheaper metal is so heavy, and 
hence its weight, as compared to bulk, will always 
testify to its genuineness. It is the same with 
truth. It has a characteristic that testifies to its 
purity as surely as weight does to gold. The truth 
is ever simple and clear. Just so far as we have the 
unalloyed truth we have that which is easily un- 
derstood. A large number of new facts brought 
to the mind may temporarily seem to be compli- 
cated, but each little item that makes up the 
whole will stamp it with its trade-mark of sim- 
plicity and clearness. 

The casuistic explanation just given for such 
depravity as exists is a simple, self-evident fact, 
which, coupled with what is now known of the 
various mental faculties, should carry conviction 
with it. And so it would but for one great un- 
fortunate circumstance that has long been a bar to 
advancement in mental science. Christianity had 
long been established and Christ long known as a 
savior before a higher degree of intelligence and 



40 THE SAFE SIDE. 

a slight change in circumstances made it necessary 
to show how it was that Christ was a savior. The 
explanation then adopted cannot necessarily be 
regarded as simply an explanation. On the con- 
trary, the church was obliged to make it the 
foundation of some of its most prominent doc- 
trines, and hence that which was only an enforced 
explanation became the source, in part, of Chris- 
tian ethics. Within that explanation lies the 
assertion that all men are naturally depraved. 
Through many long ages the church has pointed 
to the few whose natural deficiencies seemed to 
indicate natural depravity and has claimed that 
all contrary conditions were secured only through 
faith in Christ. 

When, therefore, a better understanding of the 
human mind exposed facts in conflict with this 
explanation, numerous Christian writers took it 
upon themselves to publish works which, while 
they pretended to teach mental science, were in 
fact but their own complicated theories, arranged 
to fit their doctrine of natural depravity. The 
true intent of those authors was to defend Chris- 
tian dogmas, rather than to increase our knowl- 
edge of the mind. Their works were theological 
rather than metaphysical. They were not like 
the rails that guide the cars on the way, but like 
the switches by which those cars are side-tracked 
and stopped. The very same idiosyncrasies that 
prompted those authors to write those books 
wholly unfitted them for the task. 



NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 4I 

Autology, by Rev. D. H. Hamilton, d.d. , is one 
of the latest and most pretentious of this class of 
works. The author states in his preface that " All 
who begin with nature must of necessity end in 
nature and in atheism." This quotation is not 
given for the purpose of stating that the author 
does not know that entering upon any particular 
course will end in atheism, but to show that he 
presumes to dictate to truth whither it shall 
lead. 

That with which we are not to begin is either 
true or false. If the latter, it can be shown to be 
so and the investigation will be harmless ; but, if it 
is the former, we want to know it. The supposi- 
tion that studying nature will lead to atheism is 
offered as a sufficient reason for not doing so, even 
though that study is upon the works of God. This 
quotation exposes the involuntary tendency of the 
author to fit everything to his religious ideas. It 
is his admission that facts conflicting with them 
will not be tolerated. 

But the truth is the only thing we are seeking. 
All experience shows how we have suffered when 
falsehood has been mistaken for it, and shows that 
governing truths are indeed treasures wherever 
found and also that the ends they lead to are above 
and beyond human capacities to discern at the 
time. Not only is it safe to follow the truth, but 
there is no safety except in following it. It will 
require all our skill to be sure we are guided 
wholly by it, and it will be enough to know that, 



42 THE SAFE SIDE. 

without attempting the impossible task of know- 
ing the future to which it leads. It is the truth 
that is wanted, and in seeking it we need not trouble 
ourselves as to whether it leads to atheism, theism, 
polytheism, pantheism, or Christianity; whither it 
leads, God leads, and we may follow with con- 
fidence. 

Throughout the 700 pages of the work in ques- 
tion, in that which the author calls mental science, 
he labors to weave a system that admits of natural 
depravity. It is clear that he was intent upon 
that idea from the first. It underlies the whole 
work, and consequently his labors were devoted 
to that end and not to advancing our knowledge 
of the mind. He says (page 255) that — 

There are none in whom all the states of the 
heart are as bad as they can be, none in whom they 
are all good; yet, since it is a fact that evil and 
selfish states of the affections do exist in all, it 
follows that all are depraved ; and while all are 
not as bad as they can be, yet all are depraved, 
selfish, and fallen, so that there is none good; no, 
not one. The man is fallen and depraved. 

Autology is a type of a large number of works 
purporting to be scientific, but which were written 
exclusively to sustain Christian doctrines, to which 
all things must bend ; and this is the reason why, 
in metaphysics in particular, so little progress 
has been made in late years. Kant, who died a 
century ago, is still referred to more than any 
other writer, and even Sir William Hamilton was 
said to have followed his system. Geology, also, 



NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 43 

has been dwarfed and retarded by Christian 
writers; it has demolished the Mosaic account of 
the creation and they either combat or ignore it in 
consequence. The vast age of the world, how- 
ever, can no longer be denied, and hence the 
Mosaic account has, as is usual in such cases, been 
reduced to an allegory; something churchmen 
were the more ready to do as it was supposed 
there had been a special creation for each species 
of animal, including man. They fitted a compli- 
cated and inconsistent meaning to the plain words 
of the Bible and contended that geology and its 
contributions to natural history quite sustained the 
story of the creation of man through Adam and 
Eve. 

But now even that concession is made useless to 
them, for the facts presented by Dr. Darwin in his 
work The Descent of Man do not admit of a rea- 
sonable doubt that we .have been e.volved from a 
very low degree and that this evolution has been 
so gradual as to make it impossible to know when 
we ceased to be animals and became human beings. 
The Darwinian theory is more than a mere hy- 
pothesis; it is stamped with the trade-mark of 
truth. The array of facts he presents carry with 
them irresistible conviction, and the quite general 
acceptance of that theory by those most capable 
of judging gives it all the weight of an established 
fact. Chauncy Wright' says of Darwin's theory 
that— 



' Philosophical Discussions. 



44 THE SAFE SIDE. 

It seems likely that we shall witness the unpar- 
alleled spectacle of an all but universal reception 
by the scientific world of a revolutionary doctrine 
in the lifetime of its author. 

Prof. Huxley, also, credits Darwin with the same 
success. Hence the reading, thinking public have, 
within thirty years, become convinced of the truth 
of that which takes from Christianity the founda- 
tion of its doctrine of natural depravity. There 
were no first parents, and therefore no fall of man. 
Upon the subject of special creation Herbert Spen- 
cer^ says: 

The analogy, suggesting as it does how the 
hypothesis of special creation is merely a formula 
for our ignorance, raises the question What rea- 
son have we to assume special creation of species, 
but not of individuals, imless it be that in the case 
of individuals we directly know the process to be 
otherwise, but in the case of species do we not 
directly know it to be otherwise? Have we any 
grounds for concluding that species were especially 
created, except the ground that we have no im- 
mediate knowledge of their origin? And does 
our ignorance of the manner in which they arose 
warrant us in asserting that they were by special 
creation? Another question is suggested by this 
analogy. Those who, in the absence of imme- 
diate evidence of the way in which species arose, 
assert that they arose not in any way analogous to 
that in which individuals arise, but in a totally dis- 
tinct way, think that by this supposition they honor 
the Unknown Cause of things ; and they oppose any 
antagonistic doctrine as amounting to an exclusion 
of divine power from the world. But if divine 



^ Principles of Biology, Vol. 2. 



NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 45 

power is demonstrated by the separate creation 
of each species, would it not have been still better 
demonstrated by the separate creation of each 
individual? Why should there exist this process 
of natural genesis? Why should not omnipotence 
have been proven by the supernatural production 
of plants and animals everywhere throughout the 
world from hour to hour? Is it replied that the 
Creator was able to make individuals arise from 
one another in a natural succession, but not to 
make species thus arise? This is to assign a limit 
to power instead of magnifying it. Is it replied 
that this occasional miraculous origination of a 
species was practicable, but that the perpetual 
miraculous origination of countless individuals 
was impracticable? This also is a derogation. 
Either it was possible or it was not possible to cre- 
ate species and individuals after the same general 
method. To say that it was not possible is suicidal 
to those who use the argument; and if it is possi- 
ble it is required to say what end is served by the 
special creation of species that would not have 
been better served by the special creation of indi- 
viduals. Again, what is to be thought of the fact 
that the great majority of those supposed special 
creations took place before mankind existed? 
Those who think that divine power is demon- 
strated by special creation have to answer the 
question To whom demonstrated? Tacitly or 
avowedly, they regard the demonstration as being 
for the benefit of mankind. But, if so, to what 
purpose were the millions of those demonstrations 
which took place on earth when there were no 
intelligent beings to contemplate them? Did the 
Unknowable thus demonstrate his power to him- 
self? Few will have the hardihood to say that 
any such demonstration was needful. There is 
no choice but to regard them either as superfluous 
exercise of power, which is a derogatory supposi- 
tion, or as exercises of power that were necessary 



46 THE SAFE SIDE. 

because species could not be otherwise produced, 
which is also a derogatory supposition. 

The evolution theory is particularly embarrass- 
ing to the church. The story of Adam and Eve 
cannot be treated as allegorical, as was done with 
the Mosaic account of the creation; neither can 
Bishop Colenso's ideas be adopted and the Pen- 
tateuch discarded from the Bible ; for in either case 
there would be no basis for the natural depravity 
doctrine, and consequently no explanation as to 
how Christ is a savior and no apparent reason for 
his coming. 

The fact that an Episcopal bishop can advocate 
such a step is a phenomenon of the mind growing 
out of the dual character of Christians. Men are 
often misled as to the particular faculties that 
govern certain acts and speech. Sir John Lub- 
bock ^ says : 

In the very same individual two contradictory 
systems may often be seen side by side in incon- 
gruous association. Thus the Christian code and 
the ordinary code of honor seem to be opposed in 
some respects, yet the great majority of men hold, 
or suppose they hold, them both. 

Through the intolerance of Christians in the 
last century, many were obliged to pretend to be- 
lieve such doctrines as were dictated to them, 
whether they did believe or not. This begat a 
habit of professing one thing and acting another, 
to which we have become blinded by familiarity. 

' Origin of Civilization 



NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 47 

For instance, men will call themselves "miserable 
sinners" in church or make pretensions of humility, 
etc., who would not tolerate the least assumption 
from others as to the truth of their affected con- 
fession. Within the system all inconsistencies are 
piously overlooked and its many needed expla- 
nations ignored. 

There being some whose deficiencies are such as 
to make them depraved, the question arises as to 
what proportion they bear to the whole. The fur- 
ther question as to what disposition to make of them 
is not pertinent to this work, but I shall have some 
suggestions to offer regarding public responsibil- 
ity in evolving them ; for, while we are not so re- 
sponsible in some quarters as heretofore supposed, 
we are more so in others. When we look over the 
past and see how many discomforts and evils of 
former ages have been overcome through increased 
knowledge, we may reasonably infer that every 
trouble of this life is under our control and may 
be suppressed. Every evil and every wrong is 
nature's red flag of danger, and, if we will but 
carefully study the cause or the remedy, or both, 
we shall sooner or later discover an improvement 
that more than corrects the fault that prompted 
the effort. 

Elsewhere it will be shown how it is that some 
people are driven to low resorts and bad habits 
whose natural tendencies would not have led them 
there. Care should be taken, also, not to mistake 
ill-manners and coarse speech for depravity, for 



48 THE SAFE SIDE. 

these may be but the misfortune of ignorance, 
which often accompanies those whose natural 
abilities are excellent. 

Crime is a disturbing element; hence criminals 
are always conspicuous in inverse proportion to 
their numbers. "Peace has no history," and the 
law-abiding citizens, in their steady, everyday 
life, are heard of but little as compared to the 
criminal class, whose depredations keep them con- 
stantly before the public. They are mentally de- 
formed and in number are probably in about the 
same proportion as those who are physically de- 
formed. If, for instance, a stranger in a village of 
five hundred inhabitants should meet as many as 
five persons who had been born with limbs so in- 
firm that they were obliged to use crutches, that 
number would attract his attention as being un- 
usually large. It is doubtful if physical deformi- 
ties of every nature amount to i per cent, of the 
population. It is reasonable to suppose that the 
percentage of those who have some serious mental 
deficiency is no greater. All mental deficiencies 
are not moral defects. It is the absence or partial 
absence of only a certain few important faculties 
that makes crime possible. Fifty burglars are 
enough to cause a city to seem to be overrun with 
them. The number of imprisoned criminals are 
few as compared to the whole people, and the 
number of those, therefore, who are seriously 
mentally deformed bear but a small proportion to 
the whole population. 



NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 49 

It is not true that we are naturally depraved. 
We are pure at birth, and one of the most common 
and niost beautiful things in human nature is that 
'we turn naturally to that which is good and right. 
It is our nature to improve without instruction. 
Loving kindness is the most conspicuous mental characte?'- 
istic of all living things. The very animals exhibit 
it in high degree. If mankind were all like the 
very few whose mental deficiencies are such as to 
make them depraved, this world would be a pan- 
demonium and would soon become depopulated. 

This fact is as applicable to barbarism as to 
civilization, otherwise there never could have 
been the latter condition, for the human race 
would have been destroyed in the former. An 
erroneous impression usually prevails regarding 
the natural disposition of savages. They have 
not been judged of justly, through not realizing 
that they continue to be governed by the natural 
laws governing animals, under the operation of 
which their numbers are kept down to the limits 
of their support. Their cruelties are owing to 
those laws; otherwise they are kind and honest. 
Of course they have their varying degrees of 
mental power, but civilization has not developed 
improvement in those qualities. Mr. Tylor ' says : 

In the West Indian islands, where Columbus 
first landed, lived tribes who have been called the 
most gentle and benevolent of the human race. 
Schomburgk, the traveler, who knew the warlike 

^Anthropology, by Edward B. Tylor, d.c.l. , f.r.s. 
4 



50 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Caribs well in their home life, draws a paradise- 
like picture of their ways, where they have not 
been corrupted by the vices of the white men; he 
saw among them peace and cheerfulness and sim- 
ple family affection, unvarnished friendship, and 
gratitude not less true for not being spoken in 
sounding words; the civilized world, he says, has 
not to teach them morality, for, though they do 
not talk about it, they live in it. At the other 
side of the world, in New Guinea, Kops, the 
Dutch explorer, gives much the same account of 
the Papuans of Dora, who live in houses built on 
piles in the water, like the old lake men of 
Switzerland. He speaks of their mild disposi- 
tion, their inclination to right and justice, tjieir 
strong moral principles, their respect for the aged 
and love for their children, their living without 
fastenings to their houses, for theft is considered 
by them a grave offense and rarely occurs. 
Among the rude non-Hindu tribes of India, Eng- 
lish officials have often recorded with wonder 
the kindliness and cheerfulness of the rude men 
of the mountains and the jungle, and their utter 
honesty in word and deed. Thus Sir Walter 
Elliot mentions a low, poor tribe of South India, 
whom the farmers employ to guard their fields, 
well knowing that they would starve rather than 
steal the grain in their charge; and they are so 
truthful that their word is taken at once in dis- 
putes even with their richer neighbors, for peo- 
ple say, *'A Kurubar always speaks the truth." 

Dr. Wallace,^ also, says: 

I have lived with communities of savages in 
South America and in the East, who have no laws 
or law courts but the public opinion of the village 
freely expressed. Each man scrupulously respects 

'Malay Archipelago, by Alfred Russel Wallace, ll.d., 

F.L.S. 



NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 5 I 

the rights of his fellow, and any infraction of their 
rights rarely or never takes place. In such a 
community all are nearly equal. There are none 
of those wide distinctions, of education and igno- 
rance, wealth and poverty, master and servant, 
which are the product of civilization; there is 
none of that widespread division of labor which, 
while it increases wealth, produces also conflict- 
ing interests; there is not that severe competition 
and struggle for existence, or of wealth, which the 
dense population of civilized countries inevitably 
creates. All incitement to great crimes is thus 
wanting, and petty ones are repressed, partly by 
the influence of public opinion, but chiefly by the 
natural sense of justice and of his neighbor's 
rights, which seems to be, in some degree, inher- 
ent in every race of men.. 

The first sight which we obtain of man in his- 
tory, so to speak, shows him to have been exceed- 
ingly laborious. The grandeur and vast extent of 
his works were such as to fill themind with wonder 
and astonishment. There seemed to be no limits 
to the magnitude of works undertaken for the most 
trifling purposes. On the other hand, those who 
have not seen our western Indians can hardly ap- 
preciate their lofty disdain of labor. They look 
upon work as degrading, and will not do even as 
much as to carry their heavy game home, provided 
they have a squaw to send after it. Their women 
are made to carry their burdens and do all their 
work, while the men regard war and hunting as 
the only occupations worthy of them, which, as 
shown by Sir J. Lubbock, is common to all savages. 

Necessarily there w^s once a time when the most 



52 THE SAFE SIDE. 

advanced of our race were such as these Indians 
now are, and a knowledge of their habits and 
customs will answer the same purpose as a knowl- 
edge of the races preceding civilization. Tylor ^ 
says : 

So far as the evidence goes, it seems that civili- 
zation has actually grov^^n up in the world through 
these three stages [savage, barbaric, and civilized], 
so that to look at a savage of the Brazilian forest, 
a barbarous New Zealander, or Dahoman, and a 
civilized Eurof)ean, may be the student's best 
guide to understanding the progress of civilization, 
only he must be cautioned that the comparison is 
but a guide, not a full explanation. 

Many of the probable steps by which civilization 
was slowly developed have been satisfactorily 
accounted for, but no acceptable theory has been 
advanced to account for the great transformation 
in ideas of labor that preceded and accompanied it. 
Further progress was impossible without labor, 
and prehistoric men had neither the work. to be 
done in their simple mode of life, nor ideas that 
admitted of doing it. But they had become too 
advanced for animals, and to be civilized they 
must work. It was not possible for any one of them 
to see this and point out the advantages of labor. 
There never existed a human being whose intel- 
lectual capacities were so greatly in advance of 
his times as such a man's would have been. To 
then discern the advantages of labor would have 
required power to foresee the improvements of 

^ Anthropology. 



NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 53 

many hundreds of years and to describe the 
changed habits, the inventions, and the educated 
wants that labor would produce. 

There must, then, have been some powerful 
cause for this great change from idleness to labor, 
that took place between barbarism and the most 
remote historical period. The manner in which 
that transformation was undoubtedly brought 
about, supplies an illustration of how our faults 
are made instruments for their own punishment 
and correction ; and it also illustrates the fact that 
in overcoming the difficulties of this life we reach 
greater improvements than the mere surmounting 
of those difficulties. It illustrates how we are 
guided by our natural mental tendencies and how 
civilization was evolved by their exercise. The 
illustration is none the less appropriate because it 
is in part hypothetical. A knowledge of human 
nature insures its accuracy in part, and the later 
steps in that transformation are historical. 

One instrument was chiefly employed in driving 
those men to work, to abandon their nomadic mode 
of life, to reflect upon personal rights, and to love 
liberty. One instrument predominated over all 
others in accomplishing that all-important result 
and bridging the wide gap between barbarism and 
civilization, and that instrument was slavery. 

But even to devise slavery was also far above the 
intellectual capacity of any man of those times. 
Slavery itself was of slow growth and, considering 
their ideas regarding labor and the immeasurable 



54 THE SAFE SIDE. 

value of labor, every step that developed slavery 
was a step toward civilization. With the lordly 
notions those savages had of their own sex and 
their contempt for women, even the idea of mak- 
ing their captives do such little work as they had 
would not have been thought of if circumstances 
had not repeatedly enforced it. There would be 
times when there was more than the women could 
carry, which suggested the idea of making the 
captives do that work. This would .not prevent 
those captives from being put to death as soon as 
the urgency was over. This seems inhuman in 
the light of the present day, but their doing so 
was both necessary and natural. In their treat- 
ment of captives those men were still governed by 
their animal instincts, and it was necessary it 
should be so as long as they depended for food upon 
game only. It was an incident in their struggle 
for existence, by which the strongest and best 
survived and the population was kept down to the 
capacity of the country to support it. Only under 
a long experience of the short service of captives 
would the time of that service be slowly extended, 
until eventually the idea of sparing their lives for 
the purpose of labor would penetrate the minds of 
the most advanced men of the times. 

At first the labor of those captives would be for 
the whole tribe in common, but the convenience 
of this would in time lead the chiefs to appropri- 
ate to their own use the service of some of them. 
This begat the idea of property in the captives, 



iSTATURAL DEPRAVITY. 55 

which would soon be participated in by each indi- 
vidual of the tribe and culminate in their being 
bartered in as slaves. During the ages that this 
had been growing to be the custom, the work to 
be done would have increased. It would have in- 
creased because there had been captives to do it. 

Their greater works would have expanded their 
minds and given them educated wants. When 
slavery was finally established they would have 
greatly advanced from the incipient state whence 
it was evolved. In this way two great improve- 
ments would be in progress, the people would be- 
come familiarized with labor and their educated 
wants would be increasing with it. Although the 
labor would be by slaves, the whole people would 
take part therein, for, during the long time those 
steps were in progress, there would be revolutions 
of their petty governments, whereby slaves would 
become masters and masters would become slaves. 

During this time, and probably before captives 
were universally bought and sold, the establish- 
ment of those tribes w^ould have become more 
troublesome in moving, and the necessity for do- 
ing so become less, as the captives or slaves could 
be made to build huts and gather grass and feed 
for the animals. In this way their nomadic habits 
were gradually abandoned and cultivation of the 
soil was gradually introduced. Civilization, like 
a falling body, progresses in an ever increasing 
ratio. The higher the intelligence the greater the 
power for further advancement. There would be 



56 THE SAFE SIDE. 

some country where its local peculiarities would 
enable or cause these various steps to be taken 
with more rapidity than in other countries, and 
this would soon give them a superiority over 
neighoring tribes or nations. This superiority 
would also be greater because of the larger popu- 
lation which cultivation of the soil would give 
them, for those who live on game require many 
acres per man for their support (about fifty). The 
strongest tribes or nations would conquer their 
weaker neighbors ; their disposition to do so would 
be increased by the fact that the captives of those 
neighboring nations, being equally inured to 
labor, would be more valuable as slaves than the 
more distant tribes, where slavery and labor had 
not progressed so far. Thus a line between bar- 
barism and a more advanced class would be es- 
tablished which would rapidly widen under the 
operations of the causes stated. 

The greater wants that slavery begat and the 
hardships of slaves set both masters and slaves 
to thinking : the first as to how to get more out of 
their slaves, the latter as to the rights of man and 
the love of liberty. Everything desirable in life 
would seem to those slaves to be embraced in that 
one word, liberty. Their liberty and human rights 
would grow to be their governing idea, and when 
from time to time old governments would be over- 
thrown and new ones established liberty on the 
part of slaves and fear of slavery on the part of 
masters would be the incentive to valor, and 



NATURAL DEPRAVITY. §7 

human rights would begin to have a place in the 
affairs of men. 

This hypothesis in no way conflicts with the 
progressive steps pointed out by ethnologists. 
Without labor those steps could not have been 
taken. Tylor ^ states : ' 

We live in days when the last remains of slavery 
are disappearing from the higher nations; but, 
though the civilized world has outgrown the an- 
cient institution, the benefits which early society 
gained from it still remain. It was through slave 
labor that agriculture and industry increased, that 
wealth accumulated, and leisure was given priests, 
scribes, poets, philosophers, to rise to the level of 
men's minds. 

Leisure was the one thing with which savages 
were too abundantly supplied before. Mr. Tylor 
underrates the effects produced by slavery. He 
says'* : " His [man's] essays afford no sufficient foun- 
dation for a definite theory for the rise and progress 
of human civilization in early times. " This admis- 
sion need not have been made if he had recognized 
the fact that slavery had taken the place of that 
mysterious intellectual development which was so 
necessary for the introduction of labor. It was the 
only source of energy in early times and the only 
means by which educated wants were increased. 
It was equivalent to supernatural wisdom for the 
time being and explains the one greatest mystery 
connected with the development of civilization. 

' Anthropology. 

'Early History of Mankind. 



58 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Thus it was that man's lordly determination not 
to labor was turned to an enforcement of that 
labor. Laziness was then and it is now an instru- 
ment to cultivate energy ; slavery, an instrument 
to cultivate liberty ; and abuse of human rights, 
an instrument to cultivate a knowledge of those 
rights. However odious slavery may be to us 
now, it was the whip that drove us to civiliza- 
tion from an idle, savage state. Out of the re- 
mote past we can see our approach from a low de- 
gree — not of wickedness — but of ignorance. Only 
from that ignorance do we need salvation, and our 
only savior is the enlightened exercise of our own 
mental powers. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE REASONING AND RELIGIOUS FACULTIES. 



THE nature of reason is such that it cannot be 
employed without experience. It needs opin- 
ions or facts to work upon as much as a carpenter 
needs materials with which to build. If we could 
know all the ends and aims of life — could know 
our Creator's designs — w^e possibly would require 
no other faculty than reason. It is clearly of the 
highest order intellectually and hence it is most 
pleasing to us to suppose we are governed by it. 
But there is an exaggerated idea as to the part it 
takes in governing our conduct. We have feelings 
called up by most of the especial faculties, but no 
feeling stimulates the action of reason, and hence 
it has but little power when opposed to one of 
those faculties. A close analysis of the governing 
motives of very large numbers of men shows that 
they use but little reason and that it is probably 
deficient to a greater extent than any other faculty. 
It is because of this that " no sense is so uncom- 
mon as common sense." 

So well arranged are the various mental tenden- 
cies for all the duties of this life that an individual 
quite deficient in reason may still, through other 



6o THE -SAFE SIDE. 

powers of the mind, be an educated, respected, 
and influential citizen ; but he will be dependent 
upon the ideas of others upon which to expend his 
natural powers. He may load his mind with more 
of other people's ideas than any one of the origi- 
nators possessed and he may be able to set them 
forth in better language. If, on the other hand, 
such an individual be reared among thieves, he 
will possess the ideas of thieves and, like them, 
will regard the better class of people as the nat- 
ural enemies of the narrow world he knows. If 
such a person should be naturally honorable, the 
form that quality would take in him would be to 
make him honorable with his associates and yet 
be none the less a thief, for the only ideas he 
would have of the better class would be those of 
his companions. 

In the absence of experience in our youth we 
could necessarily make little or no use of reason, 
and consequently we are made to accept unques- 
tioned the reasonings and conclusions of our elders. 
Our minds are even more powerfully impressed by 
them than they can.be later in life through our 
own reasoning. The consequence is that when 
we begin to act for ourselves we start with such 
ideas and opinions as have been taught us. The 
power of parental instruction is very great and 
holds us to parental opinions long after we are able 
to judge for ourselves. The ideas of one gen- 
eration are thus inherited by the generation fol- 
lowing, and the mind is consequently never open 



REASONING AND RELIGIOUS FACULTIES. 6 1 

to freely accept ideas in conflict with them. Such 
facts as would do this must necessarily be yery 
convincing, for, before they can make their new 
impressions upon the mind, they have the greater 
task of effacing the old ones. 
Darwin ' says : 

The wishes and opinions of the members of the 
same community, expressed at first orally, but later 
by writing also, either form the sole guides of our 
conduct or greatly reenforce the social instinct; 
such opinions, however, have sometimes a tend- 
ency directly opposed to those instincts. This 
latter fact is well exemplified by the law of honor^ 
that is, the law of the opinion of our equals and 
not of all of our countrymen. The breach of this 
law, even when the breach is known to be strictly 
accordant with true morality, has caused many a 
man more agony than a real crime. We recognize 
the same influence in the burning sense of shame 
which most of us have felt, even after the interval 
of years, when calling to mind some accidental 
breach of a trifling, though fixed, rule of etiquette. 
The judgment of the community will generally be 
guided by some rude experience of what is best in 
the long run for all the members ; but this judg- 
ment will not rarely err from ignorance and weak 
powers of reasoning. Hence the strangest customs 
and superstitions, in complete opposition to the 
true welfare and happiness of mankind, have be- 
come all-powerful throughout the world. We see 
this in the horror felt by a Hindoo who breaks his 
caste and in many other cases. It would be diffi- 
cult to distinguish between the remorse felt by a 
Hindoo who has yielded to the temptation of eating 
unclean food, and that felt after committing a theft ; 
but the former would probably be the most severe. 

' Descent of Man. 



62 THE SAFE SIDE. 

How SO many absurd rules of conduct, as well 
as so many absurd religious beliefs, have origi- 
nated, we do not know ; nor how it is that they have 
become, in all quarters of the world, so deeply 
impressed upon the mind of men ; but it is worthy 
of remark that a belief constantly inculcated dur- 
ing the early years of life, whilst the brain is im- 
pressible, appears to acquire almost the nature of 
an instinct; and the very essence of an instinct 
is that it is followed independently of reason. 

The fact that such eminent naturalists as Dar- 
win and Huxley differ as to whether animals do 
or do not have reason shows that at least the evi- 
dence favoring such a supposition is slight. The 
several illustrations given by Darwin are not con- 
vincing. It is probable that, with animals as 
well as men, certain acts have been attributed to 
reason that were instigated by other faculties. 
One of those illustrations was of this nature. It 
must be remembered that where there is no 
special faculty there are no interest and no mem- 
ory. Reason might take the place, but reason re- 
quires time and experience; consequently that 
knowledge which must be acquired early is in- 
sured by a faculty devoted especially to it. Ob- 
servation is one of these. Without it, man and 
animals alike would neither note nor remember 
their surroundings and would be unable to return 
to any given place. 

Darwin says: 

Houzeau relates that, whilst crossing a wide 
and arid plain in Texas, his two dogs suffered 
greatly from thirst and that between thirty and 



REASONING AND RELIGIOUS FACULTIES. 63 

forty times they rushed down the hollows to search 
for water. These hollows were not valleys and 
there were no trees in them or any other differ- 
ence in vegetation, and as they were absolutely 
dry there could have been no smell of damp earth. 
The dogs behaved as if they knew that a dip in 
the ground offered them the best chance of finding 
water, and Houzeau has often witnessed the same 
behavior in other animals. 

Observation would have taught the dogs to look 
for water where they did. That power of the 
mind that enables a man to reason out facts wholly 
new to him is of a different nature from any of 
those illustrations referred to. Prof. Proctor adds 
examples to those of Darwin, but in every instance 
that which was offered as evidence of reason may 
be accounted for in other faculties. 

Instead of being born with especial mental 
faculties leading the mind in certain channels, 
why were we not born with the necessary knowl- 
edge at once? Can it be that this life is but a test 
for the mind and that our everyday use of it may 
be of more importance than we have any concep- 
tion of? In a small way animals have knowledge 
at birth. They know where and how to obtain 
their food and understand the meaning of certain 
signs or sounds made by their progenitors. Dar- 
win says that " A beaver can make its dam or 
canal, and a bird its nest, as well, or nearly as 
well, and a spider its wonderful web quite as well, 
the first time it tries, as when old and experi- 
enced." He also refers for further "evidence on 



64 THE SAFE SIDE. 

this head to Mr. J. Traherne Moggridge's most 
interesting work, Harvesting Ants and Trap-Door 
Spiders." 

Such knowledge as this is greatly different from 
that derived through a mental faculty, for it is ab- 
solute knowledge itself, not dependent upon ex- 
perience or reason. The animal is born with cer- 
tain items of knowledge, rather than with a mental 
tendency to acquire them. 

Undoubtedly, therefore, we could have been 
born with the knowledge which our labors and 
discipline will finally give, and our not being so 
born indicates that it is desirable we should have 
the trials of this life. Our experience is the ob- 
ject of, and not merely incidental to, this exist- 
ence. We are turned loose upon this earth with 
minds so constituted that we will have exactly 
the varied experience we do have, and in it all no 
one thing is more conspicuous than the seeming 
test as to the qualities of mind of each individual. 

The evil consequences following an improper 
use of any of our faculties show that we are held 
responsible for a correct discharge of the duties 
they lead us to. The religious faculty is no ex- 
ception; in fact, its violation has caused more 
misery than the ignorant use of any other. Of 
this faculty Max Mliller^ says: 

If we say that it is religion which distinguishes 
man from animals, we do not mean the Christian 



Science of Religion. Max Mliller, m.a. 



REASONING AND RELIGIOUS FACULTIES. 65 

or Jewish religion only; we do not mean any 
special religion ; but we mean a mental faculty, 
that faculty which, independent of, nay, in spite 
of, sense and reason, enables man to apprehend 
the Infinite under varying disguises. 

The natural religious disposition is a mental 
faculty having peculiarities similar to those of the 
faculty of honor and caution, in this, that its serv- 
ice is not so well defined as is the case with some 
of the others, and consequently it requires the as- 
sistance of reason correspondingly more. It is a 
quality distinct from honor, as is evidenced by its 
frequent presence in individuals who are deficient 
in the latter. When any faculty is wanting the 
individual is not only unconscious of that fact, but 
is also unable to understand the feeling that other 
people have upon that subject. The presence of 
honor in one person and its absence in another 
produce this difference : that certain acts will give 
mental pain to the first that will not be felt by the 
other. The latter will be dull or mentally blind 
or insensible to the feelings his act ought to pro- 
duce; and, if his self-esteem is not small, he will 
feel as much contempt for what seems to him to 
be the silly sentiment of the man of honor as the 
latter will feel for him. Such a person will be 
dishonest and unconscious of it. 

The religious faculty does not insure a correct 
knowledge of right and wrong, nor does it insure 
an intelligent religion. It will not make a good 
man of one who is too deficient otherwise, and it is 



66 THE SAFE SIDE. 

not unfrequently found well developed in the low- 
est class of criminals. Sir Walter Scott says that 
" The banditti of the Appenines have among them 
persons acting as monks and priests, by whom 
they are confessed and who perform mass before 
them." The following, recently published in the 
Chicago Tribune, gives an illustration of this 
mental combination: 

A REMARKABLE FRENCH MURDER. 

Paris, Nov. 25. — A trial has just terminated at 
Caen which, as a revelation of the cold-blooded 
cruelty and tenacity in criminal purpose which a 
human being is capable of, is only second in in- 
terest to the Fenayron case. In the latter the 
victim was a lover ; in this it is the husband. The 
circumstances were as follows : 

The victim and his wife, by name Aveline, 
were domestics in the service of an old maiden 
lady, 82 years of age, in Paris. Aveline, a man 
verging on 50, had inherited a little money and 
bought some land in Normandy, and his pleasure 
in life was to spend a few days shooting the game 
that he reared for this purpose on his land. He 
was only waiting for the death of the old lad)?- to 
retire to his little estate and there, pass the rest of 
his days. In the same house in Paris resided a 
French General, with his orderly, by name of 
Garnier, a 5^oung man of 25. Garnier, in course 
of time, became the intimate friend of the Avelines 
and, about a year ago, the lover of the wife, who, 
judging by her letters, appears to have been tor- 
tured by a thirst for excitement. She contracted 
a violent affection for Garnier, whose senior she 
was by twelve years. When Garnier left Paris 
with his master an effusive correspondence ensued 
between the lovers, from which it is seen that they 



REASONING AND RELIGIOUS FACULTIES. 67 

had determined on the " suppression" of Aveline 
and that their object was to marry and live on the 
wife's money, for she, too, appears to have saved 
no small sum. 

It was arranged between Garnier and the woman 
that they should proceed to the murder of Aveline 
in September, and henceforth the letters exchanged 
refer to the scheme as if it were one of the most 
virtuous of human resolves. Thus the 19th of 
March Garnier writes: "When we are united we 
shall have but one prayer, namely, that God may 
preserve us thus for centuries." In a subsequent 
letter he says : " I shall go to mass to-morrow and 
pray Heaven to aid us in the accomplishment of 
the object we have so long been fighting for. " The 
woman wrote in the same strain the 25th of May: 
" I went this week to Notre Dame des Victoires, 
where I had a taper burned for the realization of 
our project." She wrote on another occasion of 
Aveline: " He says he is ill." (She had already 
begun operations. ) " Ah ! if God would take pity 
on me! When he complains I praise God in my 
heart. " As regards her relations with her husband, 
she had nothing, as she confesses, to complain of. 
"I would, "she writes, "I could blame Aveline for 
something, but there is nothing." She made sev- 
eral abortive attempts to poison her husband, and 
at length it was resolved that the only way to get 
rid of the poor man was to shoot him during the 
shooting season, when in Normandy. 

Garnier came down, and he and the wife con- 
certed the measures to be taken. She placed him 
herself in ambush. On the first occasion he lacked 
the courage to fire, but the second time he shot 
Aveline dead. 

Garnier sought to cast the blame on his mistress, 
whose behests he blindly carried out. The woman 
did not retaliate, and during the trial wrote a con- 
soling letter to her lover, in which she looked for- 
ward to their meeting and yet marrying in New 



68 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Caledonia. She was not aware that women are 
not sent to New Caledonia, but expiate their 
crimes in France. The jury found both guilty, 
but Garnier with extenuating circumstances. 
The woman was therefore sentenced to death 
and Garnier to penal servitude for life. 

The extraordinary feature in this strange trial 
is the thorough and yet almost unconscious de- 
pravity of both parties, but especially of the wo- 
man, the character of whose moral perversity is 
almost unique in the annals of sane criminals. 

On the other hand, the religious faculty may be 
wanting and the individual be an excellent and 
virtuous man. The faculty alone does not per- 
form such necessary service as some others; at 
least its partial omission under some combinations 
is not so serious as would be the omission of cer- 
tain others. The service of this faculty is, as 
stated, similar to that of honor. We cannot accu- 
rately prepare detailed directions for either. It is 
not possible for man to anticipate every combina- 
tion of circumstances under which individuals may 
be placed and arrange a written code of honor for 
each emergency. Any attempt to do so would re- 
tard instead of increasing the action of that faculty. 
People would constantly find themselves in posi- 
tions not provided for in the code and would as- 
sume they were therein licensed to act without 
honor. So with the affections, the everyday af- 
fairs of husband and wife or parents and children 
can only be regulated by their natural love, with- 
out which there will be trouble against which all 
the wisdom of man has never been able to guard. 



REASONING AND RELIGIOUS FACULTIES. 69 

Religion is of the same nature; it is the disposi- 
tion that is wanted rather than rules and regula- 
tions. As soon as attempts are made to arrange 
the latter, the various peculiarities of the makers 
of those regulations — their interests and deficien- 
cies — become an element in them which in time 
supersedes the original intentions. In each in- 
stance where honor is required, that quality will 
assert itself in those who have it; the same with 
love; the same, too, with religion. The individ- 
ual is not to be governed by articles, rules, or cere- 
monies, but by the sentiments which the disposi- 
tion prompts, tempered by reason. 

Even though a man be ignorant he is of course 
a better man for having this faculty; but with 
ignorance it has never failed to have a supersti- 
tious accompaniment, in which fear invariably 
takes part. Fears are raised b)^ any thing super- 
natural and which is associated with religion. 
Those fears have always been measured by igno- 
rance, and to this day a good indication of a man's 
want of intelligence will be found in rioting the 
degree of terror he has attached to his religion. 

The ignorance and fears of the religiously dis- 
posed have always built up a complicated super- 
stitious system, which in time becomes to new 
generations inherited doctrines that have long 
since seemingly been proven true. Those later 
generations seldom hear discussions upon the truth 
of the system itself, but only on certain unimpor- 
tant points. It is common with lawyers to raise a 



"JO. THE SAFE SIDE. 

false issue in cases where they are weak on the 
true one. Discussion will be raised upon some 
slight wing of the question, a settlement of which 
will be mistaken for a settlement of the whole. 
False issues are so common that in most discus- 
sions people will soon run off from the question 
first raised and argue upon points often uncon- 
nected with it. False issues have been conspicu- 
ous in political discussions and religion has seldom 
had any other. 

Religion is progressive and should be fully up 
to the intelligence of the times in its theories, 
and when such is the case it is sufficiently for the 
time the true religion. When, for instance, we 
look back to that far distant time when men first 
awoke to the mystery of the great weight of a 
bowlder of gold and bowed down to it in fear of 
its seemingly supernatural power, we see in such 
acts only degradation, ignorance, and superstition ; 
but that is because of the contrast with men of 
later development instead of with those who had 
preceded them. If we should think of what those 
men had previously been, that devotion, low as it 
was, would still be interesting as an exhibition of 
the dawn of intellectual and religious develop- 
ment. It was a step towards civilization, and 
hence the true religion then, and became super- 
stition only when, through further knowledge, it 
was beneath the intelligence of the times. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 



IN no other question is such stress set upon that 
which exists only in the mind as is done in 
the Christian religion. In other matters the acts 
of men are accepted as sufficient evidence of the 
condition of mind that governed them. But 
Christianity demands that there shall exist in the 
mind a certain belief, even though the individ- 
ual's acts shall be unobjectionable. But if this 
requirement is complied with there must be a 
cause for so doing, for belief is an impression upon 
the mind which can onl}^ be produced through 
some external cause ; no man possesses power to 
stamp such an impression of his own volition. 
Such power would be equivalent to obtaining 
knowledge without either study, observation, or 
experience. It would be even a greater power, 
for at times its exercise would involve effacing 
other impressions from the mind. Belief and cer- 
tain knowledge of a fact are both acquired in the 
same way and equally control us ; the only differ- 
ence between the two consists in the doubt that 
may attend the first. 

Christian faith is inherited. It is belief that is 



72 THE SAFE SIDE. 

impressed upon the mind in youth, and, though 
the power of such impression may be very great, 
it constitutes no proof of its truth. We cannot 
competently judge of that until we understand the 
evidence that convinced the original believers and 
also the circumstances that caused that belief to 
be handed down from generation to generation. 

When circumstances have caused great events to 
rest upon the belief of others, it becomes of more 
importance to know how they came to have that 
belief than merely to know the fact of their having 
it. If the immediate followers of Christ had not 
believed in him there would never have been any 
Christian believers. The faith of the apostles led 
all subsequent Christendom. It is only through 
them that we have the Christian religion. If those 
men had been delegated by the Almighty to pro- 
claim their belief to the world, the mere an- 
nouncement of their faith would have been suffi- 
cient. But they published the evidence that con- 
vinced them, and in so doing virtually admitted 
that their belief was obtained only through that 
evidence, and that it was not obtained in a super- 
natural manner. If, further, the rise and progress 
of Christianity may be traced through the natural 
workings of the mind, there will remain nothing 
supernatural to explain. 

Those apostles did not agree, which also shows 
that their belief was purely the result of what they 
saw. In giving their testimony they would nat- 
urally give that which impressed them most, and 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. ^3 

hence the events related in the New Testament 
were the most convincing the writers could present 
and should be the only evidence upon which to 
base our opinions. 

In investigating the truth of the Christian reli- 
gion the first question is as to the divinity of 
Christ, and if that is settled in the negative there 
does not remain a question for consideration in 
the whole system. Believing there is a God is 
not dependent upon the Bible, nor upon any part 
of the Christian system. It does not follow that 
because there is a God the Bible is true or that 
Christ is the Son of God. On the other hand, the 
truth of the Bible and every doctrine dependent upon it 
are but logical conclusions and necessities followi?ig belief 
in the divinity of Christ. Those doctrines are in- 
separable from that belief, and it will be shown that 
some matter in the New Testament was inserted 
at a late date to support them. 

If Christ was what was claimed for him, then 
ever}^ word of his was sacred, and particularly 
must his own religion be the law with his follow- 
ers. He was a Jew, possessing to the fullest ex- 
tent the religious ideas of that people, and there- 
fore the church was obliged to incorporate the 
Jewish books into the Bible and make certain 
Jewish ideas a part of the Christian system. The 
books of the Old Testament were important only 
because of the references made to them by Christ, 
and their supposed sacred character and continu- 
ance to our time are owing to that fact. 



74 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Attention will be called elsewhere to the cir- 
cumstances that led Christ to put forth his divine 
pretensions (or that .caused them to be put forth) 
and his natural desire to be believed therein. The 
gospels represent him to have made that belief 
the one chief virtue in his followers, and there- 
fore Christianity has been obliged to elevate that 
belief into a virtue of the highest order, and also 
to find a reason for his appearance upon earth 
coupled with this demand to be believed. Why 
was he sent into the world? Why was he so urgent 
in his demand to be believed ? How is he a savior? 
How was it that he was a God and yet born of a 
woman? How can there be but one God and yet 
three? How can some of his directions — such as 
eating of his body and drinking of his blood — be 
complied with? 

The answers created for these questions begat 
other questions, and those still others, the an- 
swers to all of which the Church from necessity 
had to unite upon and promulgate as its doctrines. 
Those doctrines were explanations w^holly. They 
did not originate in human wants, nor was the 
welfare of mankind a consideration in their pro- 
mulgation. Time drew out a demand for those 
explanations, and from necessity they could only 
be met by enlarging the history of Christ, and 
unavoidably they became an element in Christian 
ethics. The natural religious feeling has nat- 
urally attached itself to Christianity and through- 
out the Christian era has borne much good fruit ; 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 75 

but that good has been more than offset by the far 
greater evils superinduced by the ruinous theories 
of those explanatory doctrines. Although the 
Christian religion is very old, the standard of 
intelligence within it averaged quite the same 
throughout the largest part of its career, and not 
until recently has there come an extended knowl- 
edge of the unintelligent character of those doc- 
trines. They now constitute the church's great- 
est difficulty. It is natural that curiosity should 
have raised those questions, but even if Christ 
was equal with God they still have no bearing 
ubon any questions of ethical culture. Neverthe- 
less th,e Church, throughout its eighteen hundred 
years of existence, has filled the Christian world 
with its contentions upon those questions, the 
settlement of which either way would not in the 
least add to our store of useful knowledge, or 
stimulate our mental power to resist temptation, 
or throw light upon any question of morality; nor 
do they even remotely touch upon the all-impor- 
tant faculty of honor, to the cultivation of which re- 
ligion should be chiefly directed. They are simply 
enigmas raised by the assertion that Jesus Christ 
was the son of God. 

Vast numbers of church attendants, however, 
are still kept in darkness regarding these difficul- 
ties. It is common to represent to them that cer- 
tain objectionable features are no longer sustained, 
while others have been supposably learnedly ex- 
plained through theological ratiocinations too deep 



76 THE SAFE SIDE. 

for the inquirer. But the truth of the system is. 
simplicity itself. Its complications consist in ef- 
forts to fit a code of morals to the enforced ex- 
planations attending Christ's appearance and in 
fitting the ideas of its originators to the enlighten- 
ment of the present day. 

The gospels and the subsequent fable of the 
atonement have obliged Christianity to build up 
an enormous power in Satan at the expense of the 
Almighty. Rather than not believe that Christ 
was the son of God, Christians partly disbelieve 
in God himself, by crediting the Devil with the 
possession of such a large percentage of His power 
as to partly intercept and annul His works. • Hav- 
ing made one false statement, all others are but 
an accumulation of false statements necessary to 
sustain the first, and they all hang upon that one 
item of faith : the divinity of Christ. 

The Jews also probably owe to Christ the con- 
tinuance of their religion to the present time. 
Christianity brought them into prominence and 
sustained them and held them united by the more 
intense feelings which opposition engendered. 
The blood of martyrs is the seed of any church. 
Though not believing in Christ, the Jews are an 
accompaniment of the Christian system and are as 
much indebted to him for their distinct organiza- 
tion in our day as is any denomination within it. 

The question, therefore, is Was Jesus Christ the 
son of God? and the evidence pro or con is con- 
tained in the accounts in the New Testament. 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 7/ 

The reverence which its believers demand shall 
accompany its examination is a bar to a clear 
understanding of this evidence. People in a 
Christian country grow up in the faith. As a rule 
they make no special distinction between " God 
the Father" and "God the Son," and consequently 
Christianity has this advantage, that those whose 
studies and experience have raised doubts as to 
the truth of the Bible will, through early asso- 
ciations, stand in some degree of awe of those 
accounts upon which it is founded. 

The testimony as to the divinity of Christ lies 
wholly within the New Testament. Outside of 
that book and its accompanying uncanonical gos- 
pels he was not mentioned by any writer until long 
after his death. The many " Lives of Christ" and 
of the different apostles have led many into an 
erroneous supposition that various items relating 
to them were to be found in other works of their 
time. But such is not the case. Outside of the 
New Testament there is a gap of more than a 
hundred years in which there is no further account 
of the rise and progress of Christianity. 

But even the different books of the New Testa- 
ment were written at various dates after the death 
of Christ, and after various interests and difficul- 
ties had arisen which would influence the writers 
if they were but natural men, and become the 
cause of doctrines not thought of by Christ. 
Testimony of this nature is even more important 
than any direct statement in the book. It is more 



yS THE SAFE SIDE. 

important because from it we learn the causes that 
led to some of their teachings, and in just the de- 
gree that they show themselves governed by the 
same passions and influences that govern other 
men do they betray the absence of any sacredness 
of character. Particularly is this the case when 
it is apparent that those men both misrepresented 
Christ and ignored some of his sayings. Nothing 
in the New Testament is worthy of such scrutiny 
as that testimony which its unknown writers in- 
advertently furnished. 

Each mental faculty has the power of occupying 
the mind to the exclusion of all others and for the 
time becoming rCvSponsible f or our acts and speech. 
Like the annunciator in a hotel, the same bell is 
rung from many different rooms and from widely 
different motives. It is important to take this 
fact into consideration when the acts and thoughts 
of others are set forth in support of certain ideas. 
Particularly is this necessary in Christianity, for 
that religion, from Christ to the present time, is 
full of acts and speech that have been attributed 
to religion and to the love of Christ, but wherein 
religion had not the least part and where there 
was no special love of Christ. 

For a pretense so great, exceedingly limited 
accounts of Christ are recorded, and necessarily 
judgment of his character and of the events related 
of him must be based upon the few details of those 
limited accounts. Christians must permit those 
who differ with them to hold up the disclosures of 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 79 

those records as equally important even though 
based upon but little. Those disclosures are as 
broad as the isolated events related of Christ and 
broader than the basis of some important doctrines. 
One of the most remarkable events asserted of 
Christ is based upon three short sentences in Acts 
of the Apostles partially supported by two in the 
four gospels. 

But, while the sacredness of the Bible and of 
every dogma of Christianity is dependent upon the 
divinity of Jesus Christ, the strength of the Chris- 
tian position lies in the exaltation of credulity. 
Faith is a virtue only within the Christian system. 
Upon all other questions blind, unreasoning be- 
lief is a fault. That false virtue fills a very im- 
portant part in that system. This grows out of 
the fact before mentioned that people in a Chris- 
tian country grow up in its belief and with it have 
been taught that the more confiding and unques- 
tioning is their belief the higher will be their own 
purity and piety. This false virtue consequently 
subserves a double purpose in this, that it prevents 
investigation and that doubt conflicts with the be- 
liever's self-esteem. This latter is all the greater 
because the supposed virtue can be very cheapl)' 
retained. It came without effort and only requires 
to be left undisturbed. The consequence is that, 
instead of investigating, many believers will take 
credit to themselves for their pious rejection of 
anything that might take from them the self-satis- 
faction they derive in their supposed virtue. Be- 



8o THE SAFE SIDE. 

lievers often credit religion with feelings that are 
based only upon their vanity. 

There must be no deviation on the part of the 
Christian from anything where Christianity as- 
sumes to have pointed out the way and the remedy. 
Its wisdom must never be questioned. If history 
shows through all its career that its remedies 
never cured, its followers must deny this, and 
equally through all time must claini the effect 
that its supposed sacred character should have 
produced. The faith of the Christian must thus 
extend to unbelief in anything that conflicts with 
it. He must reject history and the evidence of 
his own eyes if necessary. The same authority 
that says Jesus was the Son of God instructs, also, 
that a confiding, " lively faith" in the truth of this 
statement will regenerate and purify the believer 
so that he will lead a better life ; and if experience 
proves that this is not true it equally proves the 
uselessness of that belief and its improbability. 
Hence Christianity is obliged to fit everything 
to that pretense. In sustaining its truth, history 
and experience are being constantly falsified so as 
to force an agreement with it. 

It is important also to take into consideration 
the channel through which the Bible and all docu- 
ments bearing upon it have reached us. A require- 
ment of the early Christians was that all property 
should be held in common. This, however, was 
not a hardship, as they were daily looking for the 
coming of the kingdom of heaven. This require- 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 8 1 

ment necessitated officers possessing defined au- 
thority and therefore enforced an organization. 
Converts were at first among the poor, but unitedly 
there would soon be considerable property, with 
increasing influence on the part of the officers. In 
this way the Church very soon supplied to its 
leadfers more agreeable occupations than they had 
probably ever had before. This at once gave a 
personal interest in the movement, outside of their 
religion, that grew to be enormous in the second 
century and was then sufficient to cause many to 
make any statement that would help to sustain 
them in their offices. 

People who are relieved from all fears of not 
obtaining at least a moderately comfortable sup- 
port do not sufficiently realize the great hardship of 
those who can obtain only the coarsest subsistence 
by the most severe labor. Most such people have 
no higher ambition than that they may be able to 
secure a living by some easy occupation, and when 
they do have experience of such an existence they 
will naturally resort to great extremes to avoid 
returning to that labor which has become still 
more objectionable, and when such eJfforts are at- 
tributed to religion the interest that actuates them 
will be very great. Experience of this kind has 
been reproduced in the Mormon church. Its lead- 
ers from the first, though unknown and regarded 
with contempt outside of their church, filled more 
important and agreeable positions within it than 
they would have occupied in other fields. 
6 



82 THE SAFE SIDE. 

The great personal interest in sustaining the 
church grew rapidly and soon became the most 
powerful element in its support. During a large 
part of the Christian era it supplied more numer- 
ous and more desirable offices than the civil gov- 
ernments. Under such circumstances vast num- 
bers of corrupt men have, in all ages, filled rhany 
of its most important offices and influenced its 
government. All documents bearing upon the 
early history of the church were thus for centuries 
under the care of those who would not hesitate at 
any act of interpolation and suppression in perpet- 
uation of that which supported and magnified their 
office. Many, also, would do this through super- 
stitious zeal. 

The church, from the first, claimed that the 
apostles and leaders generally possessed some of 
the divine powers attributed to Christ, holding 
that they also could speak with heavenly authority. 
It was long after the death of Christ, and when 
their personal interest was great, before they 
awoke to the necessity of collecting such writings 
as they could bearing upon that subject. It would 
be perfectly consistent for such men, with such 
views, to revise and force an agreement, not only 
on the part of the apostles upon the issues of their 
times, but also an agreement with their own pe- 
culiar wishes as well. 

The noted forgery of Jesus Christ, inserted in 
the works of Josephus, is an illustration of what 
they could and would do. Among other acts of 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 83 

this kind, it is probable that manuscripts have 
been made to appear to be older than they were. 
The Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles were 
attached to the New Testament at a later date 
than the four gospels, and though, through incom- 
petency, much is exposed which the church would 
have concealed, it has undoubtedly successfully 
concealed much more. 

We would naturally suppose that the Gospel of 
Peter would be one that, above all others, the 
church would have preserved with most zealous 
care. Peter is shown to have been second to 
Christ before the crucifixion and first among the 
apostles thereafter. His gospel is one of the old- 
est Christian writings and was in extensive use in 
the churches before the four gospels were known. 
It was virtually the original New Testament. The 
disappearance of such a gospel, following such 
general use, can be explained only through inten- 
tional suppression, particularly as the reason for 
so doing is exposed in the New Testament. But 
in this important instance we have positive evi- 
dence that the church did so destroy it, for there 
are accounts of at least one bishop being busily 
engaged in that very work. In his act we see the 
church laboring to destroy the "inspired" writings 
of him whom it claims to have been its first bishop. 

In the year 190 a large number of the Gospels 
of Peter were found in use by the Church of 
Rhossus, in Cilicia; and so much were the Chris- 
tians of that church attached to them that it be- 



84 THE SAFE SIDE. 

came necessary for Serapion, one of the bishops, 
to suppress them. 

****** 

Credner thinks the gospel {of Peter] was one of 
the oldest writings of the church and the source 
from which Justin [martyr] drew many- of his 
quotations. ^ 

Next to the Gospel of Peter, we would suppose 
the Gospel of James would have been preserved, 
but it is numbered with the lost, together with the 
Gospel of Paul, Oracles of Christ, and very many 
other gospels and writings, for an extended ac- 
count of which the reader is referred to the history 
just quoted. 

Necessarily we cannot know the extent of the 
damaging evidence the church hid from us in the 
suppression of those works, but the New Testa- 
ment does expose why we are not permitted to 
read the Gospel of Peter and why it presents us 
with so much of the writings of Paul. This will 
be further referred to in its proper place. 

Three hundred years after St. Paul's time and 
long after the church contained rich and highly 
desirable offices, the New Testament still did not 
contain all the parts it now does. Those full di- 
rections to bishops, for instance, must have been 
inserted by bishops, for the church could not have 
advanced in Paul's time to the variety of offices 
mentioned in the works attributed to him. Some 
idea of the power the church had acquired at an 

1 History of the Christian Religion, by Charles B, 
Waite, A.M. 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 85 

early day and of the kind of men who virtually 
could make holy manuscripts is shown in Gibbon's 
account of another Paul who filled the rnetropolitan 
see of Antioch two hundred years after the time 
of St. Paul : 

The wealth of that prelate was a sufficient evi- 
dence of his guilt, since it was neither derived 
from the inheritance of his father, nor acquired 
by the arts of honest industry. But Paul consid- 
ered the service of the church as a very lucrative 
profession. His ecclesiastical jurisdiction was 
venal and rapacious; he extorted frequent con- 
tributions from the most opulent of the faithful, 
and converted to his own use a considerable part 
of the public revenue. By his pride and luxury 
the Christian religion was rendered odious in the 
eyes of the Gentiles. His council chamber and 
his throne, the splendor with which he appeared 
in public, the supplicant crowd who solicited his 
attention, the multitude of letters and petitions 
to which he dictated his answers, and the perpetual 
hurry of business in which he was involved were 
circumstances much better suited to the state of 
a civil magistrate than to the humility of a primi- 
tive bishop. When he harangued his people from 
the pulpit, Paul affected the figurative style and 
the theatrical gestures of an Asiatic sophist, while 
the cathedral resounded with the loudest and most 
extravagant exclamations in the praise of his di- 
vine eloquence. Against those who resisted his 
power or refused to flatter his vanity, the prelate 
of Antioch was arrogant, rigid, and inexorable; 
but he relaxed the discipline and lavished the 
treasures of the church on his dependent clergy, 
who were permitted to imitate their master in the 
gratification of their sensual appetite ; for Paul in- 
dulged himself very freely in the pleasures of the 
table and he had received into his episcopal palace 



86 THE SAFE SIDE. 

two young and beautiful women as the constant 
companions of his leisure moments. 

Notwithstanding these scandalous vices, if Paul 
of Samosata had preserved the purity of the or- 
thodox faith, his reign over the capital of Syria 
would have ended only v/ith his life, and, had 
seasonable persecution intervened, an effort of 
courage might perhaps have placed him in the 
ranks of saints and martyrs. 

This bishop may or may not have been a fair 
type of his class, but his holding such an office at 
all indicates a low standard, which is further evi- 
denced by the difficulty of removing him. Those 
men lived in the beginning of the compilation of 
the Bible, and through two or three hundred 3^ears 
it was such as they Vv^ho passed upon the admission 
of some and the rejection of others of the parts 
of the Old and New Testaments. During many 
centuries thereafter the officers of the church had 
the power to reach and control all historical rec- 
ords, and could interpolate and suppress as their 
interest or superstition dictated. All literature 
was in manuscript and duplicating copies was a 
great labor. This work soon fell into the hands 
of monks almost exclusively, particularl)^ as Greek 
and Latin became dead languages and were con- 
fined mostly to church service. Therefore, the 
lost gospels and other works having a bearing 
upon this question have undoubtedly been sup- 
pressed by the church itself, and the disposition 
to do this is in full force even in our day. 

When we judge of the workmanship of some 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 87 

grand structure we are too apt to be impressed 
only with that which we see. We do not realize 
that before any work was done it existed only in 
the mind of the architect and that" the skillful 
construction of the building was dependent upon 
the correctness of the ideas which he then em- 
ployed. The all-important work was that which 
was done when the building was but a phantom 
in the minds of its originators. It is the same 
with a system of government. The laws we know 
are important and the constitution still more im- 
portant, but under all that there are governing 
ideas of right and wrong existing in the minds of 
those who framed the laws, and if their ideas were 
erroneous the entire system will be at fault, to the 
sorrow and misfortune of those who are ruled by 
them. Our most far-reaching errors are those 
wherein we adopt falsehoods as the quintessence 
of truth. 

With the decline of the Christian religion his- 
tory will have to be rewritten. At the present 
time there is no study more instructive, none more 
valuable to us all, than a study of the enormous 
injury which the false governing ideas of that 
religion have wrought in every branch of knowl- 
edge. Andrew Dixon White, ll. d., l.h.d., ex- 
president of Cornell University, in a series of 
articles published in the Popular Science Monthly, 
has pointed out how it operated to retard progress 
in various branches of science, his last article, at 
the present writing, being a history of the ruinous 



88 ' THE SAFE SIDE. 

part its errors took in retarding a knowledge of the 
science of medicine. Buckle's History of Civili- 
zation in England is also a highly interesting and 
instructive illustration of the rich experience we 
may gain when our minds become disconnected 
from governing ideas the most ruinous our race 
has ever known. 

An erroneous opinion is quite general regarding 
the number and age of old manuscripts. There 
are manuscripts, no doubt, over a thousand years 
old, though none can be traced back more than a 
few hundred years, and the oldest, if genuine, was 
written in an age quite as remote from the time 
of Christ as w^e are from the time of Columbus. 
Prof. C. E. Stowe, in his work The Origin and 
History of the Books of the Bible, has given an 
enumeration of old Bible manuscripts and their 
supposed age. He says : 

Of the volume containing the gospels we have 
at least 426 different manuscripts, of which 27 are 
uncials, or more than one thousand years old; of 
the volume containing Paul's epistles, 255 manu- 
scripts, of which 9 are uncials ; of the volume of 
Acts and the Catholic Epistles, 200, of which 8 
are uncials; and of the Apocalypse, or Revela- 
tion, 91, of which 3 are uncials. 

Prof. Stowe then gives a history, as far as 
known, of five manuscripts believed to be the old- 
est, one of which is supposed to have been written 
as early as the fourth century. The following is 
part of his account of the manuscript which he 
seems to prize the highest, before reading which 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 89 

let me remind the reader of the great pecuniary 
value set upon old Bible manuscripts in these 
times and the corresponding temptation to imi- 
tate and create an appearance of having imearthed 
such. 

In 1844 Dr. Tischendorf, while traveling un- 
der the patronage of the king of Saxony for re- 
search in biblical science, was at the convent of 
St. Catharine, on Mount Sinai. From a basket of 
rubbish intended to kindle his fire he picked out 
forty-three beautiful parchment leaves belonging 
to a manuscript of the Septuagint hitherto un- 
known. These on his return to Europe he pub- 
lished. On the 4th of Feb'y, 1859, he was at the 
same convent for the third time, and one of the 
monks brought to him the other leaves of that 
same manuscript loosely tied in a napkin. To his 
inexpressible delight he found here not only the 
remaining portions of the Septuagint, but also the 
entire New Testament, with the epistle of Barna- 
bas and portions of the Shepherd of Hermas, the 
most complete, the most ancient, the best manu- 
script copy of the entire New Testament that has 
yet been known. 

Within the Christian era probably no country 

has been so often fought over and desolated by 

contending armies as Judea. In the first and last 

four or five centuries of that time it has been 

visited by thousands who were searching for relics, 

manuscripts, etc. , and in the crusade wars it was 

governed for nearly a hundred years by highly 

devout Christians. During all of this time the 

Sinai manuscript remained undiscovered, and by a 

most astonishing coincidence it now turns up as 

kindling for a fire at the exact moment when a 



90 THE SAFE SIDE. 

person arrives whose only business it was to find 
just such a manuscript. This account also im- 
plies that those monks, though devoting their 
whole lives to the Christian religion, were igno- 
rant of the interest and value attached to ancient 
manuscripts of the New Testament. 

The date of all very old manuscripts is con- 
jectural. In no instance can they be traced back 
to within hundreds of years of their supposed 
date. One of the oldest referred to can be traced 
back only to the year 1450. The next longest 
known manuscript is entitled the Beza and can be 
traced back to the year 1552 ; but it contains mat- 
ter not found in the others and not strictly in har- 
mony with the truth as understood by Prof. Stowe, 
and therefore he promptly repudiates it to that 
extent. He states that " we must here remark that 
the Beza is the least reliable of the five manu- 
scripts." 

The childlike credulity with which the author 
accepts Dr. Tischendorf's transparent fraud and 
his skepticism of the assuredly old Beza manu- 
script are illustrations of the controlling power 
of inherited ideas and the slight effect which later 
evidence usually has upon them. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE WITNESSES AND IMAGINATION. 



ONE of the several causes that sustain the Bible 
in our day is that such a large proportion of 
intelligent people do not read that book at all. 
Those who do read it do so as an act of devotion 
and their mingled feelings of reverence and fear 
utterly unfit them for an unbiased examination of 
it. Even the most intelligent of the latter class 
are driven to partial unbelief, as shown in their 
inconsistent rejection of part of the system. The 
more studious such readers are the more liberal 
they become, even to the extent, with a constantly 
increasing number, of rejecting it altogether. 
The bulk of even educated people leave all Bible 
questions to theologians and accept without ques- 
tion their supposed conclusions. This seemingly 
confiding acceptance misleads many professors and 
deters them from frankly admitting the doubts 
which their studies have raised. Two quite large 
parties are thus deceiving one another into sup- 
porting that which a little research on the one part 
and a little honesty on the other would show that 
neither believed. 



92 THE SAFE SIDE. 

The accounts of Jesus were traditional for a 
generation or two. The temporary nature of his 
followers' expectations did not admit of the 
thought that writing his history would be neces- 
sary, as the kingdom of heaven was daily expected. 
Christianity is consequently dependent upon the 
judgment of those men who verbally during many 
years repeated accounts of those events that con- 
vinced them. It is necessarily important to know 
the degree of their intelligence and capacity to 
judge for us, for Christianity knows Christ only 
through their understanding. The acts and every 
word of the exceedingly limited testimony of 
those men have been commented upon over and 
over again by Christian writers until there are 
vast libraries of their works. But these are all 
the devout speculations of those who believed and 
who were blinded by belief to the pointless- 
ness of their comments from the standpoint of 
unbelief. 

But little reference can be made to those writers 
in an examination of the question of the divinity 
of Christ, because they wrote only upon the as- 
sumption that upon that point there was no ques- 
tion. With this conceded, there was occasion to 
fill libraries with their books in efforts to reconcile 
that concession and the logical conclusions it en- 
genders with reason ; but, as a study of the truth 
of the assertion that Christ was the Son of God, 
those works are worthless. For proof of the di- 
vinity of Christ Christians refer to the Bible ; for 



THE WITNESSES AND IMAGINATION. 93 

proof of the divine authority of the Bible they 
refer to Christ ; but for the truth of both they have 
nothing to offer. That is simply a question of 
credulity. 

But it is consistent that it should be so, for that 
was the marked characteristic of the only witnesses 
who saw and directly testified of Jesus. Only the 
most credulous even then believed in him. Not 
only the better classes in his own time, but even 
those who knew him best, repudiated his divine 
pretensions. A being so far above all others 
would without effort have naturally deeply im- 
pressed the people of his own home. But Matthew 
(xiii, 57, 58) says that he was without honor there 
" and did not many [any] mighty works, because 
of their unbelief." 

Even at as late a date as the appearance of the 
Gospel of John, credulity was still a leading char- 
acteristic in the Church, as is shown by the ideas 
of its author. The incident of the woman at 
Jacob's well is an illustration of what they then 
considered impressive evidence. The account is 
in the fourth chapter. Jesus had been talking 
with the woman alone at the well, after which she 
went into the city (Chap, iv) : 

28 * * * and saith to the men, 

29 Come, see a man which told me all things 
that ever I did: is not this the Christ? 

30 Then they went out of the city, and came 
unto him. 

******** 
39 And many of the Samaritans of that city be- 



94 THE SAFE SIDE. 

lieved on him for the saying of the woman, which 
testified, He told me all that ever I did. 

Reference to the account will show that all 
Jesus told the woman of herself was that she had 
had five husbands. His farther statement that he 
with whom she was then living was not her hus- 
band was but repeating what the woman had in 
part just told him. 

Nathanael's conversion, as set forth in the first 
chapter of John, was, if true, but a childish ex- 
hibition of credulity on his part. If not true, it 
is an equal exhibition on the part of those who, 
at a late date, composed such a story in the inter- 
est of the Church : 

45 Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto 
him. We have found him of whom Moses in the 
law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Naz- 
areth, the son of Joseph. 

46 And Nathanael said unto him. Can there any 
good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith 
unto him. Come and see. 

47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and 
saith of him. Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom 
is no guile ! 

48 Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest 
thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him. Be- 
fore that Philip called thee, when thou wast under 
the fig-tree, I saw thee. 

49 Nathanael answered and saith unto him. 
Rabbi, thou are the Son of God; thou art the 
King of Israel. 

Some of the accounts indicate that the Apostles, 
part of them at least, were but boys, as illustrated 
in the following: 



THE WITNESSES AND IMAGINATION. 95 
MATTHEW XX. 

20 Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's 
children, with her sons, worshiping him, and 
desiring a certain thing of him. 

21 And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She 
saith unto him. Grant that these my two sons may 
sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on 
the left, in thy kingdom. 

24 And when the ten heard it, they were moved 
with indignation against the two brethren. 

MARK IX. 

^^ And he [Jesus] came to Capernaum : and be- 
ing in the house, he asked them, What was it that 
ye disputed among yourselves by the way? 

34 But they held their peace: for by the way 
they had disputed among themselves, who should 
be the greatest. 

The remarkable credulity and simplicity of 
Christ's followers are conspicuous throughout the 
New Testament. If some of the events therein 
described were possible, their performance would 
have produced a widespread sensation far greater 
than is represented. (The resurrection of Lazarus 
as an instance.) But that book admits the adverse 
testimony of the class most capable of judging of 
this question and the evidence, and it shows that 
only those believed whose opinions were worthy 
of the least notice. 

In ancient times the universe was supposed to 
be of but trifling extent as compared to what we 
now know it to be. In giving his idea of the dis- 
tance of the stars, Homer said it would take a 
brazen anvil nine days to fall from them to the 



96 THE SAFE SIDE. 

earth. Even Milton, who by comparison was 
quite within our own time, gave nine days in fall- 
ing from heaven down to hell as sufficient to rep- 
resent immensity of space. But, astronomically 
speaking, a body would fall but an insignificant 
distance in nine days, particularly as the increas- 
ing ratio of speed of falling bodies was probably 
not taken into consideration in either instance. ' 
The ancient ideas of God were even more limited, 
for, in addition to the supposed narrow extent of 
creation, they had divided His power among so 
many as to have reduced, in their imagination, 
the powers of a God to those but slightly superior 
to man's. They were familiar with the idea of 
gods taking the form of men and mingling with 
them and they often attributed divine power to 
the most distinguished men of their times. With 
their ideas it was comparatively a simple matter 
to believe that Christ was the Son of God, in do- 
ing which they exhibited far less credulity than 
those who believe that assertion in the light of the 
present day. 

The exceedingly short account of Christ is not 
a source of weakness, but is one of strength. The 
very little that is known of him has left full play 
for the imagination of devout followers to color 
according to their intelligence and the circum- 



' The earth would be 641^ days in reaching the sun, 
while light would traverse the distance in eight minutes 
and it would require three years to reach the nearest fixed 
star. 



THE WITNESSES AND IMAGINATION. 97 

stances of the times. Any politician knows how 
careful prominent statesmen must be in express- 
ing opinions or in taking sides upon any new 
political question that may be put forth. Such 
men often use great ingenuity to avoid committing 
themselves to measures until necessity compels. 
Reticence is very necessary in those holding 
important political positions. The very slight 
knowledge we have of Christ serves the same 
purpose and is the one chief circumstance that 
has as yet enabled that religion to be " fitted to 
any people and any age." 

If the daily habits, manners, and speech of 
Christ were known and his sayings during a length 
of time recorded, he would have made very many 
statements and committed many acts that would 
have made an extended belief in his pretensions 
an impossibility. As it now is, a man believing 
that he was ci God will have an undefined dream 
of his acts and sayings in which he will be pictured 
as all that a God should be, untrammeled with a 
commonplace history to the contrary. In the in- 
cident of the woman at Jacob's well, for instance, 
it is the imagination only that impresses the mind 
with anything therein divine. A believer would 
say that all that was said there was not reported 
and he would credit Christ with language and 
picture scenes to the widest extent of his ability, 
and necessarily far superior to those represented 
in the account. 

If the various events were not fully reported, 
7 



98 THE SAFE SIDE. 

why was that service omitted? If "the half has 
never been told," why was it never told? If it 
was necessary to send Christ here to save the 
world, it was equally necessary that the acts that 
were to save it should be accurately recorded for 
the benefit of all time. Or, if the world could be 
saved without a record of the acts of the one sent 
to save it, then why do we have the New Testa- 
ment at all? Between the imagination and alle- 
gory, nothing substantial has been left in the 
Christian system to combat. It has "withstood 
the test of time," not because it is like a rock, but 
because it is like a vapor. 

We have ocular evidence of a small fraction of 
what the imagination does for Christianity in the 
thousands of magnificent paintings and engravings 
intended to represent Bible scenes. The im- 
agination of the artist in most such pictures is 
vastly superior to the ideas of the author of that 
upon which they were founded. 

The writers of the gospels themselves drew 
frequently upon the imagination of their. readers. 
Matthew says, iv, 24: "And his fame went 
throughout all Syria." 

But he records nothing to justify such fame; 
and, if true, we should have heard of it in the 
histories of those times. 

A similar assertion is made in John vii, 46, 
where it is said of Jesus that " Never man spake 
like this man. " The author of that gospel brought 
to bear all the skill he was capable of in his efforts 



THE WITNESSES AND IMAGINATION. 99 

to exhibit Jesus as the Son of God; but, recogniz- 
ing his own inability to put into the mouth of 
Christ utterances consistent with the divine char- 
acter given him, he drew upon the imagination of 
his readers with this simple, unsupported asser- 
tion. It is one that detracts as much from the in- 
telligence of the Almighty as it adds to that of 
Jesus. He sent His Son to accomplish a certain 
object, involving greater wisdom than was pos- 
sessed by ordinary mortals, and then failed to 
secure the least record of such superior wisdom. 
Jesus came to teach that which would naturally 
involve speaking as never man spake, but left not 
one recorded sentence or idea that indicated the 
possession of such power. Any ignorant man 
could make the simple assertion that he had so 
spoken, but to prove it by illustrations requires the 
power of speaking as never man spake ; and, as the 
gospel writer did not possess that power and there 
had been no such wise words uttered whence ex- 
amples could be drawn, no examples could be given. 
The last verse of the last chapter of that gospel 
is an immense draft upon the imagination and is 
also an exhibition of the powers of imagination of 
its author. He wrote : 

And there are also many other things^ which 
Jesus did, the which, if they should be written 
every one, I suppose that even the world itself 
could not contain the books that should be written. 

The part the imagination takes in Christianity 
is not confined to the supposed sayings of Christ 



lOO THE SAFE SIDE. 

that have never been recorded, but it is also 
brought into active service in those that have 
been. As given i*n the New Testament those say- 
ings are of such an exceedingly low order of 
superstition that unless believers took great liber- 
ties they would overthrow any moderately intelli- 
gent system that could be built upon them. The 
more intelligent the Christian is the less does he 
care for the ideas Christ's words directly convey 
and the more does he draw upon his imagination 
for a deep, hidden, spiritual meaning, foreign to 
the words themselves. In doing this each indi- 
vidual of them assumes for himself to fit any the- 
ory or any key separately to each incident. They 
do not, like Swedenborg, honestly fit a key to the 
whole Bible, but each for himself gives full play 
to the imagination separately for every event. 
They only agree in this, that the simple ideas con- 
veyed by the words alone are to be partly or 
wholly ignored. 

All the Lives of Christ and of the Apostles 
furnish ample illustration of this in the license, if 
not dishonesty, of their authors in the immensity 
of their drafts upon the imagination. No matter 
how ignorant, no matter how intelligent, each 
and all will picture and theorize according to their 
capacity and substitute the same for the records 
themselves. 

Language bears the same relation to ideas that 
dress does to the person. Those who have excel- 
lent taste and skill can do much to make an ill- 



THE WITNESSES AND IMAGINATION. lOI 

formed person present a moderately graceful ap- 
pearance. It is the same with ideas. Those pos- 
sessing good command of language can so dress 
out ideas of a low order as to give them respect- 
ability and even a semblance of wisdom. One of 
Henry Ward Beecher's most distinguishing char- 
acteristics consisted in his great command of lan- 
guage, and when exercising that power, coupled 
with his imagination, he at times dressed out the 
low ideas of the New Testament so artistically 
that the originators themselves would not know 
them. A man v/ith his ability must necessarily 
have devoted all his skill to his imagined mean- 
ing of the words rather than the actual. In his 
Life of Christ he precedes his comments upon this 
conversation between Christ and the woman at 
Jacob's well by, for the second time, asserting 
that there was this double meaning, without which 
all such men as he would be unable to comment 
upon the words of Christ at all. He says: 

We see in this conversation again the very same 
subtile play of thought between the material and 
its spiritual counterpart which was shown in the 
conversation with Nicodemus and with the ques- 
tioners in the Temple. He recognized the quali- 
ties and the substance of this world as they ap- 
peared to his followers, while their outcome and 
value and meaning in the spiritual life was his 
real and inner interpretation of them. 

Mr. Beecher then takes it upon himself to give 
authoritatively and at great length the thoughts 
of Christ, representing them to be greatly different 



102 THE SAFE SIDE. 

from what would be inferred by the words them- 
selves, taking care, no doubt, that those thoughts 
do not conflict with his own doctrines. It is in- 
teresting, however, to note that the idea in one 
answer was too low for his elevated standard. It 
was too narrow to admit of any " subtile play of 
thought between the material and its spiritual 
counterpart," and he was therefore obliged to 
bring Christ down to a lower level in order to 
answer it. Mr. Beecher's position necessarily re- 
quired that Christ's words should be for all the 
world and for all time. But, in answering a 
question of the woman, Christ denied her religion, 
which differed from his only in having a different 
temple, and said to her, " Salvation is of the Jews." 

Even Mr. Beecher's imagination fails him here. 
A few pretty words was the best he could do in 
admitting that Christ's idea was not above the 
woman's upon this theological question. He there- 
fore isolates it from the others by stating that 
Christ " for the moment restrained his imperial 
views to sustain the truth as taught at Mount 
Zion, as compared to the truth taught at Gerizim." 

The Jews and Samaritans had made an impor- 
tant advance in religion by worshiping but one God 
and worshiping Him as a spirit. That was the 
only improvement they had made, their religion 
otherwise being the same as those of neighboring 
pagan nations, all of whose ideas and customs they 
retained. They built altars and temples for the 
same uses as did the pagans and offered sacrifices 



THE WITNESSES AND IMAGINATION. IO3 

of animals under the same superstitious notions, 
and like the pagans they built their temples on 
the top of some hill, which was recognized there- 
after as a sacred mountain. It is evident that 
rivalry between the Jews and Samaritans caused 
each to deny the sanctifying effect of the temple 
of the other. It was upon this narrow local ques- 
tion that Jesus "restrained his imperial views" to 
certify to the efficacy of the temple of his country- 
men as against the temple of a neighboring and 
rival nation. 

Neander and De Pressense have each written a 
Life of Christ, and they are each equally author- 
itative readers of his secret thoughts, but they saw 
no restraining of imperial views in this answer. 
The conversation is all treated as equally impor- 
tant by them. The reason given why the woman 
asked the question was that she had just discov- 
ered that Christ was a prophet and promptly 
availed herself of the opportunity offered to settle 
in her mind this question as to the sanctity of the 
temple at Gerizim. 

Dr. Lange in his Life of Christ states that in 
his answer Christ " intended to humble the proud 
Samaritan in her." But pride was what the poor 
woman most needed. With more self-respect she 
would have been virtuous. The doctor finds a 
deep meaning in the request to " Go call thy hus- 
band. " It was not, he writes, wholly " as a pre- 
text in order to lead her to a confession of her 
criminal course of life," but it was also because 



I04 THE SAFE SIDE. 

she showed a disposition to become a disciple of 
Jesus, and therefore her husband should be present. 

In other words Jesus, who knew .she had no hus- 
band, told her to call her husband so that she should 
not believe without his consent. And if, also, a 
husband should refuse his consent, the inference is 
that the wife would not be justified in being saved. 

St. Augustine, more than fourteen hundred 
years ago, in his comments upon this passage, saw 
a connection between the five husbands and the 
five senses. His imagination was equally pious 
and equally supplied the intellectual requirements 
of his time. It answered the same purpose then, 
in fitting Christianity to his age, that the imagina- 
tion of Mr. Beecher or Dr. Lange does now. 

The first chapter of the New Testament is very 
inconsistent with other teachings of Christianity. 
The superstition of its author is promptly exposed 
in showing the unimportant coincidence of the suc- 
cession of fourteen generations. The believer's 
faith also is confronted with one of two genealo- 
gies that are entirely different, and therefore both 
cannot be true. Even in our time, with nearly 
everybody possessing the ability to write, few 
keep a genealogy of their family, and among those 
of a corresponding class with Joseph there are none. 

The second great virtue peculiar only to the 
Christian system is humility. Much is made of 
the humble birth of Jesus: that he was born in a 
manger; that he was meek and lowly; that his 
disciples and daily life were among the poor, so 



THE WITNESSES AND IMAGINATION. I05 

miich so that by example and precept the rich 
were quite excluded from his fold. With such 
sentiments nothing whatever would be allowed 
for birth. If any distinction was made it should 
have been against those claiming it rather than 
the contrary. Genealogies are begot of pride only. 

The genealogy of Christ must have been in- 
serted at a late date and was probably intended to 
add importance to him, in part, by representing 
Joseph to have been a descendant of David and 
possibly, also, to account for the followers of 
Christ having called him King of the Jews. But, 
even if either one of the genealogies were true, he 
would still have had no right to be called King of 
the Jews while Joseph was alive. 

Those confiding church attendants who leave 
all these enigmas to theologians, never doubting 
that they long since have been met and explained, 
will be interested in noting how an ancient pillar 
of the church settled this difficulty for all time. 
St. Augustine drew upon that inexhaustible source 
of Christian mental wealth — the imagination — and 
said: "Joseph might have had an adopted father, 
and that the two genealogies were of those two 
men respectively. " Having stated that such might 
have been the case. St. Augustine, from that time 
forth, leaves the reader to infer that his thoughts 
were a saintly revelation and treats this supposi- 
tion as an absolute fact. It would be a surprising 
coincidence, also, that both men should have been 
direct descendants from David. 



Io6 THE SAFE SIDE. 

The story of the birth of Jesus, including the 
three wise men of the East and the star of Beth- 
lehem, is said to be similar to the accounts found 
in most of the ancient religions. We are possibly 
expected here to modify this account and under- 
stand that the star was but a light looking like 
a star. But the writers did not so intend ; they 
meant just what they stated. The universe — 
earth, sun, moon, and stars — in their imagination 
probably occupied less space than the moon's orbit 
alone. To those writers the stars were quite as 
small as they looked, and that one of them could 
be brought down and put to the service described 
was in keeping with their ideas of what ought to 
be done at the birth of a god. But even a light 
no higher than a boy's kite would still be too high 
to show the house it was over, particularly in 
ancient times, when buildings were huddled closer 
together than now. 

We are also expected to take Joseph's interpre- 
tations of dreams as the commands of God. But 
in this the authors were imitating those of the 
Old Testament. Although Joseph is represented 
here as having a knowledge of the divinity of 
Jesus, he seems to have forgotten it a few years 
later, at which time Jesus was found in the temple, 
sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing 
them and asking them questions. In answer to 
the questions asked by his parents as to why he 
left them, he said : " How is it that ye sought 
me? wist ye not that I must be about my father's 



THE WITNESSES AND IMAGINATION. IO7 

business? And they understood not the sayings 
which he spake unto them." (Luke ii, 50.) 

The disciples of Christ were particularly inter- 
ested by parables and supposed they, to some 
extent, proved that which they illustrated, not 
realizing that any idea may be expressed in that 
manner. Very ignorant people, in our time, take 
more interest in that which is represented in rid- 
dles than in any other way. The parallel seems 
to such people to be more ingenious than it really 
is. They remember better the ideas conveyed be- 
cause of the wonderful puzzle that illustrated them. 

The disciples seemed displeased with him for 
having related the parable of the Sower and the 
Seed to the multitude. The spirit of their com- 
ments was jealousy, and Jesus yielded to it by rep- 
resenting, in effect, that in his address just given 
he had intentionally deceived his hearers, " Lest 
at any time they should be converted and their 
sins should be forgiven them." (Mark iv, 12.) 
According to this they Were not a part of the world 
he had come to save, and he therefore put them off 
with blind remarks which he did not intend they 
should understand. This was immediately after 
addressing them, and necessarily too soon to have 
learned anything of them he did not know before. 
Seemingly he deliberately deceived them, but in 
fact he simply found his disciples jealous of his hav- 
i^g" given to the multitude what was to them a deep 
parable, and he appeased them by indirect flattery. 
This is a favorable explanation of a dark passage. 



CHAPTER VI. 

JOHN THE BAPTIST. 



THOSE who can free their minds from the bias 
of early training and consequently from in- 
herited ideas and can read the New Testament in 
the light of their own judgment, will find it in- 
deed a revelation, but a revelation of a nature op- 
posite to that w^hich is claimed for it. Even if 
true, it does not show the motives and relations 
of its characters to have been as represented. It 
is not believing the Bible that is so much de- 
manded as believing sacerdotal interpretations 
of it. 

One very important example is in relation to 
John the Baptist. That book discloses enough to 
show that he was the originator and founder of 
that which became Christianity; that he never 
took a subordinate position to Jesus; that he did 
not admit Jesus was the one w^hose coming he pro- 
claimed; that he was indignant at that pretense ; 
that long after the crucifixion there were followers 
of John who did not believe in Jesus; and that 
probably even the word " Christian" was first used 
to distinguish the followers of Christ from the dis- 
ciples of John. 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. IO9 

John was acting upon the common Jewish belief 
in the coming of the Messiah, the subsequent be- 
lief that Jesus was. that Messiah being a result of 
circumstances foreign to his efforts or intentions ; 
but years afterwards, the Christian religion hav- 
ing been widely extended and therefore new and 
important interests being enlisted in its support, 
it became indispensable that the records should 
represent John as admitting that Jesus was the 
one coming after him, " the latchet of whose shoes 
he was not worthy to unloose. " 

Jesus was baptized by John and his career began 
after that date. The Gospels of Mark and Luke 
contain not one word showing an admission on the 
part of John himself that Jesus was the one whose 
coming he proclaimed, and Matthew mentions but 
07ie instance only (iii, 14), and a later event shows 
that that one could not have been true. In relat- 
ing the baptism of Jesus by John, Matthew offsets 
the secondary position of Jesus by stating that 
John at first protested, saying: 

I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest 
thou to me? 

But later, when John was in prison, Matthew 
tells us he heard of the works of Christ and sent 
two of his (John's) disciples and said unto him: 

Art thou he that should come, or do we look 
for another? (xi, 3.) 

Such a message as this could not have come from 
John if the events previously related as having 



no THE SAFE SIDE. 

taken place at the baptism of Jesus were true. On 
the contrary, John's language is of a censuring, 
protesting nature. It will be seen also that he at 
the time had disciples distinct from Jesus, as was 
the case long after. The subsequent verses show 
that Jesus was endeavoring to win over and ap- 
pease John by statements that would have been 
unnecessary if their relations to one another were 
as represented. The closing of his answer, 
" Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in 
me," indicates the offense John had taken and the 
desire of Jesus to placate him. 

This message and its answer clearly disclose 
that neither John nor Jesus knew of the alleged 
descending of the spirit like a dove and the voice 
from heaven; and most certainly John could not 
have said " I have need to be baptized of thee, and 
comest thou to me?" Neither Mark nor Luke has 
this passage, though both assert the descending of 
the spirit like a dove. 

John the Baptist was widely known and popular. 
His imprisonment and execution show that he 
must have been a man of importance, heading a 
movement that led to extreme measures on the 
part of the authorities. Herod would certainly 
have been indifferent to the mere assertion of a 
citizen, " That it was unlawful for him to have 
his brother's wife. " John had evidently become 
a power in the land, and the true reason for his 
execution is not given in the Gospels. He would 
hardly have used such an expression of himself as 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. Ill 

" One mightier than I " if his position had not 
been one of distinction. Throughout the New 
Testament his importance and popularity are 
manifested. It is given in two instances as com- 
plimentary to Jesus that he was supposed to be 
John. Jesus refers to him, and after his death 
they dated from the time of John. (See Acts i, 22 ; 
X, 37; xiii, 24, 25; Luke xiv, 16.) The four 
gospels begin with accounts of him. In those 
times it was common to connect some supernatural 
event with the birth of distinguished men. Luke 
has such an account at the birth of John, to which , 
he devotes his first and greatest attention, to the 
exclusion of the nativity of Jesus, about which he 
has less to say. They all state that the people 
went out from Jerusalem and the country about 
and were baptized by him in Jordan. 

Herod did not hear of Jesus imtil he had caused 
John to be beheaded, and then he said of him : 

This is John the Baptist ; he is risen from the 
dead; and therefore mighty works do shew forth 
themselves in him. (Matt, xiv, 2.) 

Jesus himself only a short time before his 
crucifixion, while in Jerusalem, again took a 
secondary position to John by asking a question 
based upon John's acknowledged greater fame. 
Jesus had been asked: " By what authority doest 
thou these things? and who gave thee this author- 
ity?" He avoided the question by asking in re- 
turn: "The baptism of John, whence was it? from 
heaven or of man?" If they answered, "Of men, 



112 THE SAFE SIDE. 

they feared the people: for all held John as a 
prophet." (Matt, xxi, 23-26.) This question in- 
dicates a desire on the part of Jesus to couple him- 
self with John and avail himself of his popularity 
and reputation as a prophet, and probably also to 
secure the same toleration for himself that they 
had given to John. 

Luke said of John the Baptist that: "All men 
mused in their hearts of John, whether he were 
the Christ or not." (iii, 15.) 

The Prophet Elias was to appear before the 
coming of Christ. In Matt, xvii, 10, Jesus is re- 
minded of this and answered that " Elias is come 
already and they knew him not," and "Then the 
disciples understood that he spake unto them of 
John the Baptist." 

This shows that his disciples had not previously 
so understood it, and Jesus only saying so by im- 
plication indicates that their relative positions 
were such as to make that assertion a bold one. 
Upon another earlier occasion, however, when 
John was in prison, he did assert directly that John 
was Elias. He said: "And if ye will receive it 
[believe it], this is Elias which was for to come." 
(Matt, xi, 14.) 

Josephus records the reason why Herod caused 
John the Baptist to be beheaded. The gospel- 
writers could not give the true reason, for it would 
make too conspicuous his superior position. The 
assumption that John foretold the coming of Jesus 
made it desirable to present him in a favorable 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. II3 

light, but not sufficiently so as to eclipse Jesus, 
which would have been the case were the whole 
truth given. John's popularity was so great that 
Herod was jealous of it and put him to death 
through fear of the power he was acquiring. The 
greater distinction of John is further exemplified 
in this, that, while Josephus gives this account 
of John's importance, he shows no knowledge of 
Christ. Josephus' says: 

Now some of the Jews thought that the destruc- 
tion of Herod's army came from God, and that 
very justly as a judgment for what he did against 
John that was called the Baptist, for Herod slew 
him, who was a good man and commanded the 
Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness 
towards one another and piety towards God, and so 
to come to baptism ; for that the washing would 
be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not 
in order to the putting away of some sins, but for 
the purification of the body, supposing still that the 
soul v/as thoroughly purified beforehand by right- 
eousness. Now when others came in crowds about 
him — for they were greatly moved by hearing his 
words — Herod, also fearing lest the great influ- 
ence John had over the people might put it into 
his power and inclination to raise a rebellion 
(for they seemed to do anything he should advise) , 
thought it best, by putting him to death, to pre- 
vent any mischief he might cause, and not bring 
himself into difficulties by sparing a man who 
might make him repent of it when it should be 
too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out 
of Herod's superstitious temper, to Macherus, the 
castle I before mentioned, and was there put to 
death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the de- 

' Antiquities of the Jews, xviii, 5. 



114 THE SAFE SIDE. 

struction of this army was as a punishment to 
Herod and a mark of God's displeasure to him. 

Much excitement evidently attended the execu- 
tion of John, an account of which is given in the 
sixth chapter of Mark, that gospel stating that: 

29 And when his [John's] disciples heard of it, 
they came and took up his corpse, and laid it in a 
tomb. 

30 And the Apostles gathered themselves to- 
gether unto Jesus, and told him all things, both 
what they had done and what they had taught. 

31 And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves 
apart into a desert place and rest a while: for 
there were many coming and going, and they had 
no leisure so much as to eat. 

34 And Jesus, when he came out, saw much 
people, and was moved with compassion toward 
them, because they were as sheep not having a 
shepherd: and he began to teach them many 
things. 

The 30th and 34th verses give an appearance of 
there having been a consultation as to a successor 
to the Baptist and that a delegation had tendered 
that position to Jesus. *' They told him what they 
had done and what they had taught. " This is the 
reverse of what it should have been had Jesus 
been the master. It was for him to instruct as to 
what to teach, and subsequent obedience would 
not require such a report, while disobedience 
would not be reported at all. On the other hand, 
if those men were soliciting Jesus to assume the 
leadership of John's proselytes, it would have been 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. II5 

natural to point out what had been done and 
what had been taught. 

" They were as sheep not having a shepherd. '* 
In that case John had not taught them that Jesus 
was the Messiah, their shepherd, their Lord and" 
master. Jesus had evidently been no rival to the 
Baptist, and it is probable that it was by the lat- 
ter's death that he was brought into prominence 
with those people, and his ambition may not at 
first have been above being John's successor. 

John the Baptist practiced great self-denial and 
was temperate. Jesus said of him (Luke vii) : 

$^ For John the Baptist came neither eating 
bread nor drinking wine ; and ye say, He hath a 
devil. 

34 The Son of man is come eating and drink- 
ing ; and ye say. Behold ! a gluttonous man, and a 
winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! 

John's temperance is mentioned in several 
places, and in this at least shows superiority over 
the people of his time; but Jesus is represented 
as turning water into wine at a feast. The differ- 
ence between the two in this respect was so 
marked as to attract the attention of the disciples, 
who asked, seemingly reprovingly, why there was 
such difference. 

And they said unto him. Why do the disciples 
of John fast often, and make prayers, and likewise 
the disciples of the Pharisees; but thine eat and 
drink? (Luke v, ss-) 

Temperance was not a feature of the followers 
of Jesus. In Acts ii, 15, Peter defends the disci- 



Il6 THE SAFE SIDE. 

pies upon a seemingly natural charge of drunken- 
ness by saying : 

For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing 
it is but the third hour of the day. 

The implication conveyed in this defense is at 
least not indicative of temperance on the part of 
those men. 

According to Luke, the Lord's prayer was taught 
to the disciples in answer to a request from them 
to teach them to pray as John also taught his dis- 
ciples. (Luke xi, i.) Luke also says : 

The law and the prophets were until John: 
since that time the kingdom of God is preached, 
and every man presseth into it. (xvi, i6.) 

There are other allusions to John the Baptist in 
the synoptic gospels, but nowhere is it shown that 
he himself ever acknowledged Jesus to be the 
Messiah or that he took a secondary position to 
him, the one solitary instance given being plainly 
untrue. 

But the Gospel of John gives repeated instances 
in which John the Baptist is represented as giving 
his personal acknowledgment that Jesus was the 
one whose coming he foretold. That gospel 
rushes to the opposite extreme and exposes a de- 
sire to cover that point in the haste with which a 
number of disconnected, improbable, and, under 
the circumstances, ridiculous admissions by John 
are stated to have been made. But even that 
gospel exposes the untruthfulness of those state- 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. II7 

ments, which will be further confirmed when we 
consider that it was written nearly two hundred 
years after the birth of Christ, nearly one hun- 
dred and sixty years after the crucifixion. 

When reading ancient history we are apt to 
look too lightly upon a period of fifty or a hundred 
years. It lies in such remote perspective and we 
pass over events so rapidly that we undervalue the 
lapse of time and do not make just allowance for 
the great changes which must have taken place. 
We associate the people of one generation too 
closely with those of one or two generations later, 
not realizing that the names of the former " have 
been carved for many a year on the tomb," nor 
that the entire population of the globe has been 
changed, involving, often, widely different cir- 
cumstances, and therefore widely different motives 
attending their actions. We also assume that the 
men of a later generation possessed more know- 
ledge of the men and of the motives of those who 
had preceded them a generation or two than they 
actually did. The absence of a knowledge of 
printing and the slow and comparatively expen- 
sive means of transportation for travelers, wares, 
and letters confined far more than now the knowl- 
edge of everyday events to the section and the 
generation in which they occurred. 

The impression of far distant time left upon 
the mind in looking back a number of centuries 
varies with individuals, but in no instance does 
such an impression bear just proportion to the 



Il8 THE SAFE SIDE. 

actual difference in time between certain events. 
After the two or three centuries next to our own 
time, the duration of each century impresses the 
mind less and less, until a century two thousand 
years ago seems but a trifling period. Most of 
the canvas of a painting will be occupied with the 
foreground, while the many miles of the distant 
view will occupy but a narrow strip. So with the 
mind, it is doubtful if the impression of time long 
past differs greatly with the majority in looking 
back four hundred years from that of looking back 
two thousand. The time of Columbus seems as 
distant to many as does the time of Christ. 

The Christian writers of the third or fourth cen- 
tury appear to us to have lived so near to Christ 
that we naturally give greater weight to their tes- 
timony and views, for they seem to be almost wit- 
nesses; while on their part Christ already seemed 
to have lived in a time quite as remote as it ap- 
pears to us. They looked upon Christianity even 
then as venerable with age and sanctified by time. 
When the Fourth Gospel was written, more than 
a century had passed over the graves of those who 
had walked with Christ. An investigator then in 
Judea would have deemed it a curiosity to find an 
old man who, in his j^outh, had heard his great 
grandfather say that he, in his youth, remembered 
having seen Christ. One hundred and fifty years 
then took the followers of Christ nearly as far away 
from his time as we are to-day, so far as any 
ability to obtain new evidence was concerned. 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. II9 

Such as had previously been written was all there 
could be. It was not in their power to then find 
personal reminiscences of Jesus previously un- 
known. . Necessarily, there were more sources of 
information in the way of old manuscripts, but the 
church, directly or indirectly, suppressed those 
that were objectionable. It is reasonable to sup- 
pose that the lost gospels and other writings fur- 
nished evidence in refutation of those doctrines and 
assertions which the Fourth Gospel was intended 
to confirm. The truth need never fear investiga- 
tion. Suppressed evidence is always in conflict 
with that which it is desirable to prove. 

The circumstances under which that gospel was 
written were such as to call es^Dccial attention to 
everything wherein it differs from the others, for 
it was written at too late a date to be of any value, 
so far as additional testimony is concerned. Each 
difference is like a red signal, that points out a 
weakness which time has developed and which it 
is attempted to remedy. 

When a person, either by word or act, attempts 
to make an event seem different from what it 
really was, he is attempting a work of art, and, 
though he may be skillful, he is quite sure to fail 
in some particular and thus betray that, for some 
purpose, he is seeking to make that which is not 
true seem to be true. This species of art is often 
resorted to in crime, and it is interesting to ob- 
serve how difficult it has been to make even a 
simple, everyday act, which had not been done, 



120 THE SAFE SIDE. 

appear to have been done. The criminal invari- 
ably makes mistakes in which those who after- 
wards investigate are able to see exactly what he 
did, including his efforts to deceive. Many little 
details will be overlooked that become so many 
witnesses for the truth as against his carefully ar- 
ranged system to establish a falsehood. 

It is the same in the case of any false testimony. 
The mind is then so much occupied with the 
results that it is desired to bring about that it 
is incapable of imitating the disinterestedness 
and simplicity of truth. It is through this that 
such witnesses most frequently fail. They usually 
reach that which they wish to prove too soon; their 
anxiety is at once made manifest and they will 
affirm or deny before it is necessary. The most 
common fault with actors is to overdo their parts, 
and false witnesses fall into the same error. 

In Acts of the Apostles it is disclosed that, long 
after the death of Christ, there were followers of 
John the Baptist, and it is evident that when the 
Fourth Gospel was written there was still such a 
body, or, at least, there were those who asserted 
that John did not acknowledge Jesus. The church 
was in great need of testimony to counteract this 
important fact, for it would not do to have it seen 
that the Baptist was antagonistic to Jesus. It was 
indispensable to the success of the church that the 
Baptist and his acts be absorbed into and made a 
part of its system. The Fourth Gospel exhibits a 
studied effort to cover this point, but overdoes the 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. 12 1 

work and through excess of zeal furnishes evidence 
of untrustworthiness. In every instance in which 
its author mentions John, the latter is represented, 
if it is possible, as giving this very testimony, 
which was so conspicuously absent from the syn- 
optic gospels; while, on the other hand, he omits 
all the instances mentioned in those gospels in 
which Jesus is represented in an inferior position 
to John. He does not even mention the baptism 
of Jesus by John, and this omission is the more 
marked because he does mention the spirit de- 
scending from heaven like a dove, which was rep- 
resented as occurring upon that occasion. 

That gospel begins immediately upon this point. 
In the fifteenth verse of the first chapter the 
Baptist is made to say " This was he of whom I 
spake," meaning Jesus of course, though he was 
not pointed out or his name mentioned; that first 
appears in the seventeenth verse. Disciples of 
the Baptist would naturally assert that, if the Christ 
had come, it was John rather than Jesus. In re- 
futing this, it would be natural that the mythical 
witnesses should be first made to represent John 
as denying that he was the Christ. He is 
made to make such a denial in the following 
verses : 

19 And this is the record of John, when the 
Jews sent priests and LeVites from Jerusalem to 
ask him, Who art thou? 

20 And he confessed, and denied not; but con- 
fessed, I am not the Christ. 

21 And they asked him, What then? Art thou 



122 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that 
prophet? And he answered, No. 

2 2 Then said they nnto him, Who art thou? 
that we may give an answer to them that sent us. 
What sayest thou of thyself? 

23 He said, I am the voice of one crying in the 
wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord, 
as said the prophet Esaias. 

24 And they which were sent were of the 
Pharisees. 

25 And they asked him, and said unto him, 
Why baptizest thou, then, if thou be not that 
Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet? 

26 John answered them, saying, I baptize with 
water: but there standeth one among you whom 
ye know not : 

27 He it is who, coming after me, is preferred 
before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy 
to unloose. 

The mind of the author of those verses was too 
much occupied with the opposition he was com- 
bating to suspect how unnatural and inconsistent 
his account would appear to those who knew noth- 
ing of such opposition. What was there to con- 
fess? What to not deny? Why so much emphasis 
on the word confess! and why such a word at all? 
Why was it necessary to assert that he was not the 
Christ? 

This language is exactly in keeping with the 
end the author had in view, but as unlike as it 
well could be to such as John would have used 
had he really acknowledged Jesus. If Jesus had 
been all that his disciples said he was and John's 
relations to him had been as they represented, then 
it would have been his (John's) glory and pleasure 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. I23 

to both acknowledge and point him out with pride, 
nor would there have been any act of John's that 
would have made it even possible for any to mis- 
take him for the Christ. Such a suspicion would 
not " come so near as to have to be denied." 

There would be no occasion where he would 
have been more likely to proclaim Jesus as the 
Christ than when those priests and Levites were 
sent to question him. His previous reference to 
Jesus Christ shows that, according to that gospel, 
he then knew Jesus to be the Christ. John was 
baptizing beyond Jordan at the time, and his large 
following and the attending excitement would 
naturally beget just such an examination as this 
delegation of Pharisees is represented to have 
made ; and it was probably known to those whom 
that gospel- writer was then addressing, for he puts 
ambiguous language into the mouth of John, not 
venturing to assert that he then designated Jesus, 
for it was probably too w^ell known to the contrary. 
Their questions w^ere upon this very point, and 
not to have then designated who it was that he 
asserted to be the Christ was equivalent to deny- 
ing that it was Jesus. He then could have made 
the announcement with some degree of dignity, 
instead of first making it as set forth in the twent)^- 
ninth and thirtieth verses, 

29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto 
him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which 
taketh away the sin of the world! 

30 This is he of whom I said. After me cometh 



124 THE SAFE SIDE. 

a man which is preferred before me ; for he was 
before me. 

This is the first instance in the New Testament 
in which John the Baptist is represented as di- 
rectly admitting Jesus to be the one whose coming 
he foretold. According to Luke, John and Jesus 
were second cousins and of the same age, and 
they confined themselves to the same small sec- 
tion of country. Under such circumstances, this 
would have been a ridiculous d^iiouetnent following 
the excitement John had raised for him, its dis- 
tinguished and popular leader, to thus point out 
a member of his own family, and one of his own 
followers, as the Christ. Nor would it have been 
true that he had come before, for Jesus must have 
been about and known to those people all his life 
as his cousin. The author takes occasion to have 
this much-desired testimony as full as possible by 
extending the announcement through the subse- 
quent four verses, but in which mention of the 
baptism of Jesus by John is carefully avoided. 

35 Again the next day after, John stood, and 
two of his disciples ; 

36 And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he 
saith, Behold the Lamb of God ! 

From the time this was written until the present 
day, it has been read almost exclusively by those 
who believed that reading the Bible was an act of 
devotion and doubting any of it a wickedness that 
threatened them with hell fire. Under such cir- 
cumstances, few would stop to picture to them- 



JOHN THE BAI^TIST. 12$ 

selves the absurdity of these announcements, 

though it is clear that, had they been made as 

stated, they would have excited the ridicule of 

John's disciples, lost him much of his following, 

and destroyed the effect of his preaching. 

But in one of the incidents related in the Fourth 

Gospel the writer weakened what he intended to 

strengthen. He discloses what was plain rivalry 

between John the Baptist and Jesus. The account 

is in the third chapter, commencing at the 22nd 

verse. Jesus and his disciples had come " into the 

land of Judea, and there he tarried with them and 

baptized." 

23 And John also was baptizing in ^^non, near 
to Salim, because there was much water there: 
and they came and were baptized. 

******** 

25 Then there arose a question between some of 
John's disciples and the Jews about purifying. 

The gospel -writer could not state between some 
of John's disciples and the disciples of Jesus, for 
that would have surrendered the very point he was 
trying to cover. His writing " the Jews" instead 
shows especial thought and care on this point, for 
they were all Jews. Evidently this dispute was an 
assertion on the part of John's disciples that only 
his baptism would purify. 

26 And they came unto John, and said unto him, 
Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to 
whom thou barest witness, behold, the same bap- 
tizeth, and all men come to him. 

Such a statement as this to John would have 



126 THE SAFE SIDE. 

been uncalled for if he had been setting forth 
Jesus as the Messiah ; nor could there have been 
questions about purifying; nor would John have 
answered in the blind way of the subsequent verses. 
John's answer, even as given by the gospel-writer, 
does not show him as acknowledging Jesus to be 
the Messiah, though it was so intended to be 
understood. 

27 John answered and said, A man can receive 
nothing, except it be given him from heaven. 

28 Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, 
I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. 

"All believed in John as a prophet" and there- 
fore that his inspiration came from heaven. The 
spirit of the 28th verse is that even he, with his 
experience and popularity, had not presumed to 
assert such a claim as had been made by this quite 
generally unknown man. The spirit of the 27th 
verse is that he knew nothing of Jesus having re- 
ceived any authority to baptize from heaven. At 
that time the relative positions of John and Jesus 
were the reverse of the positions given them now. 
It was John who was widely and favorably known, 
while Jesus had as yet attracted but few followers. 
After all the success that had evidently attended 
the ministration of John, he would not have spoken 
in riddles of Jesus had he been his Lord and 
Master, nor would he have had his own separate 
disciples and been holding separate camps in the 
same neighborhood. 

This dispute about purification was natural, as 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. 12/ 

well as confirmatory of the theory that the tem- 
perance habits and doctrines of John were superior 
to those of Jesus. The latter asked but one con- 
dition of his followers, and that was to believe in 
him, in consideration of which he relieved them 
from the rigor of John's religion and from the 
Jewish superstition as well. He was censured for 
eating with publicans and sinners and for violating 
the Jewish Sabbath and customs; while in this 
instance his worthiness to baptize is disputed. 

The Fourth Gospel also conflicts with the one 
only instance in the synoptic gospels wherein the 
Baptist is represented as acknowledging Jesus. 
Matthew represents John as knowing Jesus to be 
the Christ when he came to be baptized before 
entering the water, and protested at that time. 
But in the Fourth Gospel the Baptist is made to 
say (i, 33) ■• 

And I knew him not : but he that sent me to 
baptize with water, the same said unto me. Upon 
whom thou shalt see the spirit descending and re- 
maining on him, the same is he which baptizeth 
with the Holy Ghost. 

According to this, the Baptist should not have 
known that Jesus was the Christ until the spirit 
descended like a dove, which is set forth as occur- 
ring after the baptism, when coming out of the 
water. 

St. Augustine tries to explain this little over- 
sight on the part of the author of the Fourth Gospel, 
but in doing so he simply cuts the difficulty in two 



128 THE SAFE SIDE. 

and divides it between the two gospel-writers. 
He says that John only partly knew Jesus when 
he came to be baptized, but fully knew him when 
the dove descended. By this he tries to make the 
statement in each gospel to be half a falsehood 
instead of one of them being wholly so. 

The writer of Acts of the Apostles takes occa- 
sion to state that " The disciples were called 
Christians first in Antioch." (xi, 26.) This little 
item must have been written long after the death 
of Christ, for none then expected that his religion 
would exist any great length of time. The Mill- 
erites, of a few years ago, had the same religion, 
but their fame did not become sufficient to induce 
any one to trace out their history and show where 
they were first called Millerites. Not until the 
Christians had become widely extended and pos- 
sessed influence and power, would it be an item 
of interest to state where they were first called 
Christians. 

The New Testament discloses that near where 
that name originated there were disciples of John 
the Baptist, between whom and the disciples of 
Jesus there was a warm controversy. The account 
is in Acts of the Apostles as follows : 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

24 And a certain Jew, named Apollos, born at 
Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the 
scripture, came to Ephesus. 

25 This man was instructed in the w^ay of the 
Lord: and being fervent in the spirit, he spake 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. 129 

and taught diligently the things of the Lord, 
knowing only the baptism of John. 

26 And he began to speak boldly in the syn- 
agogue: Whom, when Aquila and Priscilla had 
heard, they took him unto them, and expounded 
unto him the way of God more perfectly. 

27 And when he was disposed to pass into 
Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the dis- 
ciples to receive him: who, when he was come, 
helped them much which had believed through 
grace. 

28 For he mightily convinced the Jews, and 
that publicly, shewing by the scriptures, that 
Jesus was Christ. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

1 And it came to pass, that while Apollos was 
at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper 
coasts, came to Ephesus; and finding certain dis- 
ciples, 

2 He said unto them. Have ye received the 
Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said 
unto him. We have not so much as heard whether 
there be any Holy Ghost. 

3 And he said unto them. Unto what then were 
ye baptized? And they said. Unto John's baptism. 

4 Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the 
baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, 
that they should believe on him which should 
come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. 

5 When they heard this, they were baptized in 
the name of the Lord Jesus. 

6 And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, 
the Holy Ghost came on them ; and they spake 
with tongues, and prophesied. 

7 And all the men were about twelve. 

8 And he went into the synagogue, and spake 
boldly for the space of three months, disputing 
and persuading the things concerning the kingdom 
of God. 



130 THE SAFE SIDE. 

9 But when divers were hardened, and believed 
not, but spake evil of that way before the multi- 
tude, he departed from them, and separated the 
disciples, disputing daily in the school of one 
Tyrannus. 

10 And this continued by the space of two 
years ; so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard 
the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. 

How much of this account was changed when it 
was attached to the New Testament more than 
two hundred years later, we shall never know, 
but enough is exposed to show that there were 
then followers of John the Baptist who seemingly 
had not heard of Jesus. The free allusion to 
"John's baptism" shows that it was still well 
known by that name, and it is seen that such bap- 
tism was not recognized as a Christian ceremony. 
The fourth verse exhibits Paul asserting the very 
point at issue, that is, that Christ Jesus was the 
one whom John referred to. A faint pretense is 
made that Apollos was won over to belief in 
Jesus, but other expressions and attending cir- 
cumstances show that this was not true, which is 
more fully confirmed in certain passages in Paul's 
Epistle to the Corinthians. 

Aquila, who is only known as a tent-maker 
with whom Paul boarded, is represented as taking 
in Apollos, " an eloquent man, and mighty in the 
scriptures, * * * and expounding unto him the 
way of God more perfectly." 

This expounding, which the holy writer passes 
over so slightly, embraced the whole question of 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. 131 

the divinity of Christ. It covered nearly all the 
difference that existed between Jews and Chris- 
tians. The explanation was nothing less than 
convincing Apollos that the Messiah had already 
come and gone in the person of a certain unknown 
man among John's followers. This little state- 
ment implies that Apollos, a learned man, a dis- 
ciple of John the Baptist, and a Jew, was now, 
several years after the crucifixion, still ignorant of 
Jesus and of those wonderful events related of him 
and was being instructed by an inferior of events 
and doctrines v/ithin the body in which he occu- 
pied a leading position, but of which events and 
doctrines he knew nothing. 

However, the Christian S5^stem demands that 
wide latitude be given the Bible and we are ex- 
pected to confidingly accept this as a miraculous 
conversion of Apollos. But subsequent records 
are not favorable to such a conclusion. When he 
went to Achaia the brethren wrote, " exhorting 
the disciples to receive him." It would not have 
been necessary to exhort had he been one of them; 
but such a request was natural on the part of one 
who was not a brother member, but agreed with 
them to this extent, that like them he was a Jew 
and a believer in the sentiments taught by John 
the Baptist. 

In chapter xviii, 19, it is stated that Paul came 
to Ephesus, where Apollos came also. But Paul 
left and Apollos went to other parts. Paul then 
returned to Ephesus, the writer explaining that 



132 THE SAFE SIDE. 

ApoUos had then gone to Corinth. It was during 
this second visit of Paul to Ephesus that he la- 
bored with those disciples who knew only John's 
baptism. This has an appearance of Paul having 
avoided ApoUos and taken advantage of his ab- 
sence to return and, if possible, win over John's 
disciples to the Christian church. " After disput- 
ing three months he separated the disciples.''' If this 
was a separation of the disciples from the Pagans, 
then why did Paul remain and contend a year and 
nine months longer? and with whom was he con- 
tending? and for what was he contending, if his 
hearers were only his own party? Paul had been 
preaching in other places; but here, where there 
were disciples of John, he finds unusual cause 
for excitement and long-continued strife. The 
separation of the disciples could only have been the 
separation of the disciples of Jesus from those of 
John after a failure to unite. 

Long after the word Christians originated, the 
pagan world knew that religion onl)^ as the Jewish 
superstitio?i. To have named its adherents Chris- 
tiajts involved a more intimate knowledge of their 
origin and internal affairs than those outside of 
the church were likely to possess. That supersti- 
tion would attract attention as a body long before 
the indifferent polytheists would trouble them- 
selves to know its origin or the name of its founder. 
A little passage by Tertullian shows that at the 
end of the second century the Romans were still 
unfamiliar with the word Christiam. Thesuprem- 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. 1 33 

acy of the Church of Rome was established at 
about that time, and that event would naturally 
attract somewhat more attention to them. But so 
little had the Romans heard of Christians that 
they confounded the name of the man from whom 
the word was derived with Chrestus, a citizen hav- 
ing an excellent reputation, and they called them 
Chrestians. Tertullian said: 

If you call us Christians, you bear witness to the 
name of our master ; if you call us Chrestians, you 
testify to the blamelessness of our lives. ^ 

He also, upon another occasion, directly de- 
clared that " Not even of the name is there any 
certain knowledge among you. " ' 

The Jews also had a* name for them. They 
were called Nazarenes and are so referred to in the 
New Testament (Acts xxiv, 5,) after the time of 
its notice of their being called Christians. That 
name was perfectly natural and would apply to 
all in the new movement commenced by John. 
Even Christ himself had been and still is desig- 
nated as Jesus of Nazareth. It was an appropriate 
name and one that would not be likely to be 
changed without cause. The name of Christians 
plainly came from within the body referred to and 
originated as is usual in all such cases. It was a 
name given to distinguish the followers of Christ 
from a similar body that were not his followers. 
It was not only a natural, but an unavoidable 
distinction to make between those of John's 

'Tertullian, by Rev. C. Dodgson, m.a. 



134 THE SAFE SIDE. 

followers who believed in Christ and those who 
did not. 

Nearly the whole of Paul's two Epistles to the 
Corinthians are in an exhorting, complaining, 
soliciting spirit. The church there was evidently 
following other leaders and Paul was trying to 
reconcile them to himself. He writes much of 
Apollos, particularly in the first and third chap- 
ters of the first Epistle. He indites quite a phi- 
lippic against wisdom and learning, as though 
through them he had encountered some serious 
difficulty, which is all the more probable as 
Apollos was there from time to time and he " was 
an eloquent man and mighty in the scriptures." 
Learning and science w^e evidently troubling 
Paul much in those later times when Christianity 
was beginning to receive some little attention. 
In his First Epistle to Timothy (vi, 20, 21) he 
cautions him to avoid "oppositions of science 
falsely so called; which some professing, have 
erred concerning the faith." 

Paul feared the effect upon Timothy of learned 
xnen and was unwilling to trust him with them. 
In the first chapter of I Corinthians Paul 
says: 

T 2 Now this I say, that every one of you saith, 
I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; 
and I of Christ. 

13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for 
you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul? 

14 I thank God that I baptized none of you, but 
Crispus and Gains ; 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. 1 35 

15 Lest any should say that I had baptized in 
mine own name. 

16 And I baptized also the household of Ste- 
phanas; besides, I know not whether I baptized 
any other. 

17 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to 
preach the gospel : not with wisdom of words, lest 
the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. 

From this it will be seen that there were some 
at Corinth who were under the leadership of Apol- 
los, some under Paul, and all not necessarily dis- 
ciples of Christ, as his followers are designated as 
though of a separate class. Notice, too, that Paul 
seems to be defending himself from a charge of 
having baptized. 

As long as there were disciples of John the 
Baptist, baptizing with water would be a cere- 
mony appertaining more particularly to them, 
and any practice of it on the part of Christians 
would be claimed by them as equivalent to an 
acknowledgment of John's supremacy. His bap- 
tism was emblematic of the washing away of sins, 
and the ceremony would not necessarily involve 
the use of any name but the one employed in per- 
forming it. On such occasions, they would nat- 
urally commence with the words I, John, or I, 
ApoUos, or I, Paul, etc. The fact that disciples 
of Christ practiced baptism with water shows 
within itself the source of their origin, for John 
had said thai the one to follow after would baptize 
with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Their use of 
John's baptism, therefore, was inconsistent with 



136 THE SAFE SIDE. 

their pretensions and would naturally call out 
taunts from those of John's disciples who rejected 
Christ. This would in turn drive the Christians 
to change this feature of their baptism and con- 
secrate it to Christ by performing the ceremony in 
his name, or, as it is now done, in the name of 
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, an order 
to do which has been attached to the end of the 
Gospel of Matthew. It had evidently been too 
much identified with them and was too popular to 
be abandoned. 

This change had evidently not been made, but 
Paul's words were answers to criticisms that in 
time led to it. His fear of being supposed to have 
baptized in his o^vn name was simply his defense 
against a charge of imitating and following John. 

The words of Paul, just quoted, and several 
other passages in the New Testament would have 
been omitted when that book was issued, except 
that it was unnecessary, since the existence of the 
several questions they referred to was then known 
and the meaning was clear to its readers. But, in 
the many centuries since, the church has had ample 
time to suppress all outward evidence of the very 
existence of those questions. Acts of this nature 
have long been looked upon as pious. Even in 
our day, if some evidence should be unearthed 
showing that John the Baptist did not acknowl- 
edge Jesus, our prominent churchmen ^yould deem 
it their most Christian duty to conceal and sup- 
press accounts of such newly discovered facts. 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. 1 37 

But, while suppressing this knowledge, the 
church turned so many eyes upon the New Testa- 
ment that it was then impossible to wholly erase 
the passages referring to those suppressed ques- 
tions, and, consequently, that book contains all 
the evidence remaining of their existence. But 
the orthodox Christian must devoutly look for a 
pious meaning in those passages and must equally 
ignore the facts they expose. To do this, he has 
to erect complicated theories and doctrines to ac- 
count .for the unimportant contention and follies 
of ignorance and superstition. 

In the whole of the fourth chapter (I Cor.), Paul 
is evidently urging his cause as against Apollos, 
and in the i6th verse he writes: "Wherefore, I 
beseech you, be ye followers of me." His be- 
seeching is very marked in the eleventh chapter 
of his Second Epistle. He reminds them that he 
had been no expense to them and writes (8th) : " I 
robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to 
do you service." His expression in the 6th verse 
— "but though I be rude of speech" — indicates 
that the eloquence of Apollos had created an un- 
favorable contrast against Paul. Command of 
language, however, was one of Paul's strongest 
mental powers. The 4th and 5th verses are as 
follows : 

For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, 
whom we have not preached, or if ye receive an- 
other spirit; which ye have not received, or an- 
other gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye 
might well bear with him. 



138 THE SAFE SIDE. 

For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very 
chiefest apostles. 

The Baptist stood to his disciples in quite the 
same relation that Christ did to his and if another 
Christ was preached to the Corinthians it could 
only have been John. It has been seen that the 
author of the Fourth Gospel deemed it necessary 
to represent John as denying that he was the 
Christ. In those two verses Paul was asserting 
that he had preached all that John's disciples did, 
and more. He preached John the Baptist and 
Jesus also. 

In I Cor. XV, Paul repeats the story of the resur- 
rection and was evidently trying to convince them 
that it was true, which is inconsistent with the 
supposition that those he was addressing were be- 
lievers in Christ, for that was a fundamental article 
of their faith ; but it is consistent with those peo- 
ple being followers of John, for to them the resur- 
rection would be one of the most important points 
at issue and it is perfectly natural that Paul should 
be asserting it to them and enumerating the wit- 
nesses as represented. In the 1 2th verse he writes, 
" How say some among you that there is no resur- 
rection of the dead?" an expression that could not 
have been used to Christians. It shows that this 
was disputed, as would certainly be the case, by 
John's disciples. 

Other passages in these two epistles show Paul's 
desire to conciliate the Corinthians and indicate 
that, though partly with him in sentiment, they 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. 1 39 

nevertheless had not aU accepted his doctrines 
about Christ. 

John the Baptist was, within the system, the 
most important man among the Christians after 
Christ, and, if he had taken the position they said 
he had, it would have been natural for Paul to 
write much of him, particularly in his Epistles to 
the Hebrews, among whom John was popular; 
but Paul makes no allusion to him whatever in 
that epistle and seldom does anywhere, which is 
natural when it is considered that he had so much 
angry contention about him. 

The New Testament sets forth perfect harmony 
between Christ's followers and those of John, and 
therefore between Paul and Apollos; but that the 
compilers would under any circumstances be very 
careful to do. Christ had been baptized by John 
and had imitated him in preaching that the 
"Kingdom of heaven is at hand," and had made 
a record so closely identified with him as to make 
it imperative that harmonious relations be repre- 
sented as existing between them. The success of 
Christianity at an early day must have been de- 
pendent upon this, and hence they eliminated and 
interpolated sufficient to force a seeming agree- 
ment. Every word relating to John is intended 
to indicate perfect harmony with Christ, but those 
words are constantly found in connection with cir- 
cumstances which were inconsistent with such pre- 
tended harmony. 

The whole account of both Jesus and John is 



I40 THE SAFE SIDE. 

necessarily very meager, but the little we have is, 
as shown, in favor of John, Sentiments consistent 
with his habits and not consistent with those of 
Jesus are credited in the gospels to the latter, 
though it is probable that part of the best senti- 
ments of the New Testament did not originate 
even with John, but were obtained from the 
Essenes, to which sect he may have belonged. 
After John's death it is evident that Jesus secured 
many of his proselytes and reaped eventually the 
fame of his labors. Even the idea of assuming to be 
the one whose coming John had predicted may have 
been suggested by that prediction and the oppor- 
tunity it offered. Like the careers of most men, 
that of Jesus was the result of circumstances. His 
relationship to the Baptist or some other cause gave 
him sufficient prominence among those people to 
induce him to make the attempt. It is possible 
he experienced some rivalry in the man Judas 
mentioned in Acts v, 37. The reasons that sug- 
gest this will be given in another chapter. In 
this connection it is worthy of note that Jesus had 
a brother Judas (Matt, xiii, 55), who, therefore, 
would have had the same claim through his rela- 
tionship to John that Jesus had. 

On the other hand John undoubtedly found his 
incentive for the movement he originated in the 
recent formation of the vast Roman empire and 
the absorption of Judea into it. The Jewish re- 
ligion was founded upon their monstrous conceit 
that they were God's chosen people, " a royal 



JOHN THE BAPTIST. 14I 

priesthood, an holy nation," and that He had them 
under His special care to the exclusion of all 
others. They looked upon any event affecting 
their country as having been brought about by the 
Almighty solely with reference to themselves. 
With such views, the subjugation of Judea and 
occupation of Jerusalem by a power so great would 
be events second only in importance to the end 
of the little world they knew. 

By a little ingenuity, a few other circumstances 
of slight importance could be coupled with the 
great event referred to, by which the superstition 
of that people could be acted upon and they be 
made to believe, in accordance with their tradi- 
tions, that the time had come for the appearance 
of the Messiah and the coming of the kingdom of 
heaven. These are plainly the influences that 
governed the actions of John the Baptist in move- 
ments which ultimately culminated in Christianity 
and account for the so nearly coincidentl)eginning 
of that religion and the Roman empire. 

The divine honors that have since been given 
Jesus were slowly developed during the subsequent 
two centuries, and the enormous interest that be- 
came dependent upon those honors enforced public 
acquiescence with a power compared to which 
his personal efforts would have sunk into insignifi- 
cance. That interest elevated belief in his divinity 
into a virtue of the highest magnitude and pla- 
giarized from mythology a reason for so doing. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CAUSE OF THE CRUCIFIXION. 



THE New Testament supplies evidence that 
Christ did not die upon the cross, but was 
taken down while yet alive. His credulous fol- 
lowers, who had previously believed any simple 
assertion, would be wholly carried away by seeing 
him among them after being crucified or by even 
finding his tomb empty. Such an event would 
have turned their heads completely. Christianity 
seems to center around the crucifixion and resur- 
rection, and may, in the latter connection, be 
founded upon a semblance of fact. 

The evidence bearing upon this point grows out 
of the circumstance that the authorities did not 
wish to put Jesus to death. The Jews had supersti- 
tious ideas regarding the death penalty and wanted 
the Romans to commit the act. The charge was 
evidently for permitting himself to be proclaimed 
King of the Jews and exciting an uprising in 
support of that pretense. But his standing and 
following were such as to make that pretension 
merely ridiculous. For this alone he would not 
have been crucified. Pilate did not consider him 
worthy of death and tried to save his life. He 



CAUSE OF THE CRUCIFIXION. 143 

said: "I find no fault with this man" (Luke 
xxiii, 4), and tried to avoid the responsibility by 
sending him to Herod. But Herod also saw no 
occasion for putting him to death and returned 
him to Pilate. Pilate again said : 

LUKE XXIII. 

14 I, having examined him before you, have 
found no fault in this man. * * * 

15 No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him; 
and lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him : 

16 I will therefore chastise him, and release 

him. 

******** 

20 Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus, 
spake again to them. 

21 But they cried, saying. Crucify him, crucify 
him. 

22 And he [Pilate] said unto them the third 
time. Why, what evil hath he done? I have found 
no cause of death in him ; I will, therefore, chas- 
tise him and let him go. 

JOHN XIX. 

12 And from thenceforth Pilate sought to re- 
lease him: but the Jews cried out, saying. If thou 
let this man go, thou art not Cesar's friend. 
Whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh 
against Cesar. 

MATTHEW XXVIII. 

24 When Pilate saw that he could prevail noth- 
ing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took 
water, and washed his hands before the multitude, 
saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just 
person : see ye to it. 

It will be seen that the Jews threatened to 
complain of Pilate to the Roman Emperor for re- 



144 THE SAFE SIDE. 

fusing- to take cognizance of a man with quite a 
large following, who permitted himself to be pro- 
claimed King of the Jews in defiance of Roman 
authority. The possibility of this would be likely 
to have considerable effect upon Pilate. He con- 
sequently reluctantly yielded against his better 
judgment, and was undoubtedly all the more ready 
to allow Jesus to be taken down from the cross 
without certainty of death, if indeed he did not 
arrange to have it done before death. 

Joseph of Arimathea is described by Matthew, 
Mark, and Luke collectively as an honorable coun- 
selor, a just, good, and rich man, "who had not 
consented to the counsel and deed of them." He 
was just such a man as would be likely to have 
Pilate's confidence and not to be carried away by 
popular clamor. He occupied a social position 
superior to that of the followers of Jesus, and, 
though for the part he took in this event he is 
claimed as a disciple, it is not at all probable that 
he was such. Had it been true, he would have 
been heard of later. The mockery and abuse that 
had just been heaped upon Jesus would naturally 
arouse the sympathies of the better class of citi- 
zens, and out of this probably grew all the inter- 
est Joseph felt in the matter, unless he had been 
secretly commissioned by Pilate to do as he did. 

Men upon the cross would live twelve hours and 
sometimes longer, but Jesus was taken down in 
three or (by one account) six hours. When Jo- 
seph begged the body of Jesus, " Pilate marveled 



CAUSE OF THE CRUCIFIXION. I45 

if he were already dead." (Mark xv, 44.) The 
soldiers "broke the legs of the two crucified with 
him, " But when they came to Jesus, and saw that 
he was dead already, they brake not his legs." 
(John xix, 33.) 

If the two were plainly dead, then why was this 
omitted with Jesus? If they were not dead, then 
Jesus was taken down at a time when the male- 
factors, being still alive, were killed by breaking 
their legs. In these acts the same authorities who 
opposed putting J esus to death were doing what 
they could to prevent the consummation of that 
deed. They consented to it only to appease the 
people, and would naturally try to save his life 
without attracting attention. John says one of 
the soldiers pierced his side, " and forthwith came 
thereout blood and water," but this is not men- 
tioned in any of the other gospels, and if done at 
all it could have been done under orders in such 
a way as to make but a slight wound. Only that 
gospel has reference to the wound after the resur- 
rection or has a statement of his being dead 
already. The facts, however, go to show that, 
wherever that gospel difiFers from the others, such 
difference is adverse rather than favorable to the 
truth of that which it would prove. 

The authorities plainly hastened to take Jesus 
from the cross, which was done evidently after 
dark, and they retained his body in their own 
keeping, even to the exclusion of his own relatives. 
It was a simple matter, also, for them to deceive 
10 



146 THE SAFE SIDE. 

the people as to his being deposited in the sepul- 
cher. But that is immaterial. If he appeared af- 
terwards, it was because he was resuscitated ; and 
such an appearance would have produced a more 
powerful impression upon the minds of his simple 
followers than could have been effected in any act 
of his whole life. Even a mysterious disappear- 
ance of the body would have seemed to them a 
supernatural event. 

Judge Waite, in his History of the Christian 
Religion, states that — 

Jesus was on the cross from three to six hours. 
Even the latter period was much less than usual. 
Persons crucified generally linger at least twelve 
hours and sometimes two or three days. The re- 
markably short time that he remained upon the 
cross before being taken down by his disciples has 
led some writers to adopt the theory of suspended 
animation, to account for the supposed resurrec- 
tion of his body. 

(The body of Jesus was not taken down by his 
disciples, but by Joseph of Arimathea, in whose 
care it remained. ) 

But whence came this enmity to Christ on the 
part of the people? If the authorities were in- 
different to the claim of his being King of the 
Jews, then certainly that should not have troubled 
them. Preaching and baptizing will not account 
for it, for John the Baptist had been doing the 
same thing, and both the New Testament and 
Josephus show that he was popular. And yet the 
people were extremely bitter against Jesus, so 



CAUSE OF THE CRUCIFIXION. I47 

much SO that they gave the preference to Barabbas, 
a murderer, and had him released while insisting 
upon the death of Christ. 

In those times poverty must have been greater 
than it is now and the supply of food always a 
more uncertain question. Poor crops would nec- 
essarily reduce thousands to pinching poverty 
who might be comfortable in other years. A large 
number of Christ's followers went constantly with 
him from place to place, and necessarily did noth- 
ing in their own support. They had been made 
to believe that the kingdom of heaven was near at 
hand, and hence would necessarily be indifferent 
to their future wants. In our own time we have 
numerous instances of Second Adventists sacrific- 
ing property under the same belief as that of the 
early Christians. If people possessing moderate 
intelligence can do such things in these enlight- 
ened times, how much more probable it is that 
there would be large numbers of such among a 
superstitious people whose narrow idea of the uni- 
verse would make such an expected event seem 
much less improbable. 

What the effect must be of a large body of idle 
men with such views traveling about the country 
with limited or no provision made for their sup- 
port, must be obvious. The accounts of the mirac- 
ulous feeding of large numbers and the frequent 
forms in which hunger figures in the New Testa- 
ment point to what must have been a constant 
condition with them. 



148 THE SAFE SIDE. 

That book exposes, what must necessarily have 
been the case, that there were depredations upon 
other people's property. Such a body also would 
naturally draw in the vicious class, whose greater 
depredations would contribute to Christ's unpopu- 
larity. But many, if not all, of those followers 
would look lightly upon the rights of others when 
the possession of property was to be of short dura- 
tion. The frequent tirades against the rich in the 
New Testament indicate the spirit that actuated 
them. 

Observe the incident mentioned in Matthew xii, 
I to 8, where Jesus and his disciples — 

Went on the Sabbath-day through the corn, _ 
and his disciples were an hungered, and began to 
pluck the ears of corn, and to eat. 

This is something no farmer would submit to, 
even in our day, when the supply of food is far 
more sure. That the incident is mentioned at all 
shows that there were complaints as is stated, and 
probably of a serious character. The account has, 
however, been shaped to convey the idea that the 
complaint was made because the act was done on 
the Sabbath-day. But, if that was all, the inci- 
dent of plucking the grain need not have been 
mentioned. It is not likely that their laws or re- 
ligious ideas were so rigid as to make this act 
alone one in conflict with them. Josephus says of 
the Essenes that " They were stricter than any 
other Jews in resting from their labor on the 
seventh day," which shows that there were vary- 



CAUSE OF THE CRUCIFIXION. 149 

ing degrees of veneration and customs for that 
day. 

The answer of Jesus was one of justification for 
the act and was to the effect that he was Lord and 
above the law. After citing David and the tem- 
ple, he said — 

But I say unto you, that in this place is one 
greater than the temple ; * * * for the Son of Man 
is Lord even of the Sabbath-day. 

Such an answer as this could not have been other- 
wise than exasperating to those who felt only con- 
tempt for his divine pretensions. To them he was 
but an obscure and unknown man; but he an- 
nounced himself to be superior to what they most 
cherished and under self -asserted divine authority 
excused his followers in violating their rights. 
This manner, also, of appeasing their appetite 
indicates a degree of hunger bordering upon 
starvation. 

The incident of the fig tree is another example 
of this kind. It is improbable that in that country 
at that time there were fig trees that were public 
property. Going to it from afar off implies great 
hunger, which is all the more marked by the anger 
and condemnation called forth upon finding the 
tree barren. The supernatural power, also, that 
could make it wither ought to have known before 
going to it that it bore no fruit. 

According to Matthew (viii, 34) Jesus and his 
disciples were besought to depart out of their 



150 THE SAFE SIDE. 

coast by the people upon the opposite side of the 
Sea of Galilee. 

In John vi, 26, he is represented to have ac- 
cused the multitude with having sought him be- 
cause he fed them. Such an object and such a 
charge could only have been possible with a va- 
grant population. 

Notice the following as given in the synoptic 
gospels : 

MATTHEW XXI. 

1 And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, 
and were come to Bethpage, unto the mount of 
Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, 

2 Saying unto them. Go into the village over 
against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass 
tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring 
them unto me. 

3 And if any man say aught unto you, ye shall 
say, The Lord hath need of them ; and straight- 
way he will send them. 

MARK XI. 

2 And saith unto them, Go your way into the 
village over against you : and as soon as ye be en- 
tered into it, ye shall find a colt tied, whereon 
never man sat; loose him, and bring him. 

3 And if any man say unto you, Why do ye 
this? say ye that the Lord hath need of him; and 
straightway he will send him hither. 

4 And they went their way, and found the colt 
tied by the door without, in a place where two 
ways met; and they loose him. 

5 And certain of them that stood there said unto 
them, What do ye, loosing the colt? 

LUKE XIX. 

30 Saying, Go ye into the village over against 
you ; in the which at your entering ye shall find a 



CAUSE OF THE CRUCIFIXION. 151 

colt tied, whereon yet never man sat : loose him, 
and bring him hither. 

31 And if any man ask you. Why do ye loose 
him? thus shall ye say unto him, Because the Lord 
hath need of him. 

32 And they that were sent went their way, and 
found even as he had said unto them. 

^^ And as they were loosing the colt, the owners 
thereof said unto them, Why loose ye the colt? 

Clearly the owner did not freely surrender the 
ass. He would naturally be intimidated by the 
passing "multitude," and dared not make an en- 
ergetic protest. 

Those who have been schooled to look upon 
Jesus as a God will see nothing objectionable in 
this manner of obtaining the ass, but it is not such 
an act as to favorably impress unbelievers. This 
violation of the tenth commandment does not look 
like rendering " unto Cesar the things which are 
Cesar's." Such acts as this always attend the 
movements of even moderately large bodies of 
men and are anything but divine. It will be 
noticed that an account of this incident is omitted 
from the Fourth Gospel. 

Four thousand men were represented to have 
been miraculously fed at one time, and five thou- 
sand at another. The question the Roman officer 
asked Paul and the allusion to the following of an 
Egyptian, by Josephus (to which further reference 
will be made), indicate that the multitude which 
accompanied Jesus when he entered Jerusalem, 
and probably during a short time before, was from 



152 THE SAFE SIDE. 

four to five thousand men. To those ignorant 
people the leader of such a body would seem to 
occupy a position of grandeur and glory, particu- 
larly when we consider how small they supposed 
the universe to be and the vast importance their 
little country bore to it. The citizens near where 
such a body of men were miraculously fed would 
have, in their depleted stocks and damaged 
property, a double reason for disbelieving those 
miracles. 

And there followed him great multitudes of 
people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from 
Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jor- 
dan. (Matt, iv, 25.) 

This was the multitude that enabled Jesus to take 
temporary possession of the temple, which, more 
than any other act of his, was the probable cause 
of his crucifixion. It was the culmination of a 
series of exasperating acts and pretensions. The 
temple was very sacred to the Jews and formed an 
important part of their religion, and to have it 
thus violated and taken from them was unendur- 
able. When Paul's life, years afterwards, was 
endangered by the people, the charges then made 
show the Jewish sensitiveness upon that point. 
They said : 

This is the man that teacheth all men every 
where against the people, and the law, and this 
place: and further, brought Greeks also into the 
temple: and hath polluted this holy place. (Acts 
xxi, 28.) 



CAUSE OF THE CRUCIFIXION. 1 53 

Jesus was questioned by the chief priests and 
elders as to his authority in thus taking possession 
of the temple. (Matt, xxi, 23.) 

That Jesus had possession for a time is apparent, 
because the first day, and by one account the 
second day also, the chief priests and scribes did 
not lay hands upon him because they feared the 
people (Matt, xxi, 46; Lukexxii, 2), which people 
must at that time have been those who came with 
him. When authorit)^ was restored it was the peo- 
ple (or citizens) who demanded his crucifixion. 
The betrayal by Judas consisted in letting the 
Jews know when and where Jesus could be found 
away from the multitude that attended him. 

And he promised, and sought opportimity to 
betray him unto them in the absence of the multi- 
tude. (Luke xxii, 6.) 

In Mark xv, 3, it is stated that the chief priests 
accused Jesus of many things, which shows that 
claiming he was King of the Jews was not the only 
charge, and the popularity of John the Baptist 
shows that there would have been no charges for 
acts of a merely religious nature. The depreda- 
tions attending those movements through the 
country must have been serious and could not 
have done otherwise than raise the outcry that 
existed when they reached Jerusalem. These, 
with the superadded invasion of the temple, an- 
gered the people against Jesus to such a degree 
that they enforced his crucifixion. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST. 



ALTHOUGH the explanatory doctrines of the 
Christian system are inseparable from belief 
in the divinity of Christ and a great insult to God 
is embraced in those explanations, that belief is 
nevertheless the last article of faith that is aban- 
doned. Liberal Christian writers will show the 
unreliability of the gospels and prove that those 
explanatory doctrines, in the light of the present 
day, no longer explain, but will still admit that 
Christ in some undefined manner rendered the 
world invaluable service. But the simple asser- 
tion as to the divinity of Christ cannot stand alone ; 
that assertion calls for explanations and the system 
must stand or fall upon those which it has so long 
employed. All its great financial and social success 
throughout the Christian era has been obtained, 
not by the simple belief that Christ was the Son 
of God, but by the terrors of those doctrines con- 
sequent upon that belief. It is now far too late 
to substitute new theories ; if those old ones are 
false no reason remains for believing in Christ's 
divinity, and if there is no known reason why we 
should believe in Christ, then we should not bur- 



THE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST. 1 55 

den religion with a meaningless belief that stulti- 
fies reason and unnecessarily divides the power of 
God. 

But, however inconsistent this may be, as viewed 
through the faculty of reason, it is natural w^hen 
other mental powers are considered. I shall en- 
deavor to show elsewhere how it is that the public 
mind is made to be conservative and reliable in 
its opinions. Individuals may be flighty, but the 
mental progress of the public at large is slow and 
sure, and it is the law that secures this that super- 
induces the seeming inconsistency referred to. 
It must be remembered that people are not made 
to believe in Christian doctrines through any con- 
vincing statements in the Bible ; that book is in- 
cidental to faith, not the cause of it. On the con- 
trary, its statements are now the Christian's great- 
est stumbling-block, so serious that liberal thinkers 
are unable to get over them and therefore reject 
them as false. But, as faith did not come through 
them, so, with their rejection, faith remains. 
When faith is once established through the causes 
elsewhere stated, the imagination becomes the 
great factor in sustaining the system, and its free 
action is secured better without than with the 
Bible. When, therefore, the liberal Christian cuts 
off as false the basis of those explanatory doctrines, 
but still clings to faith in Christ, his imagination 
has a wider instead of a narrower field over which 
to roam in adulation of him. With such men the 
teachings of Christ remain the one great favorite 



156 THE SAFE SIDE. 

theme, not because there are records of those 
wonderful teachings, but because there are no 
records of them. 

The much lauded moral sentiments of the New 
Testament are commonplace and, if lost, would 
be again originated in the minds of thousands. 
Some of the expressions of Christ, also, are vague 
and susceptible of various interpretations. He 
seemed seldom to speak in a direct manner. Even 
simple questions he would answer by figures that 
could be adapted to a variety of sentiments, ac- 
cording to the bias and intelligence of the be- 
liever. Take as an instance the following, given 
in John xii, 35, s^. He had been asked if he 
would live forever, as it was expected Christ 
would. 

Then Jesus said unto them. Yet a little while is 
the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, 
lest darkness come upon you ; for he that walketh 
in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. 

While ye have light, believe in the light, that 
ye may be the children of light. These things 
spake Jesus, and departed and did hide himself 
from them. 

This can be fitted to almost anything except the 
question it was supposed to answer. Its very want 
of meaning well adapts it for all classes and all 
times, and for that reason it and other sayings 
similar to it have been favorite texts from which 
broad or narrow ideas could be drawn, according 
to the capacity of the preacher. Nothing is known 
of Jesus except what is related in the New Testa- 



THE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST. 1 57 

ment. His sayings at most were few, and if his 
teachings were so wonderful it should be easy to 
designate the exact lines for which mankind are 
so much indebted and would not otherwise have 
known. 

When believers are pressed to do this they refer 
to trifling passages that at best are but partly 
good. The Sermon on the Mount is chiefly 
pointed out, but it is no exception. If it was ever 
delivered as given in Matthew, why did not all 
the other gospels have it, as it was their most im- 
portant and obvious duty to record his teachings? 

Among the first manifestations of feeling in that 
sermon is a narrow hatred of the Scribes and 
Pharisees, together with sentiments the opposite 
of those of supposed Christianity. He said in 
effect that, no matter how righteous they might 
be, they should not enter into the kingdom of 
heaven. (Matt, v, 20.) His exceeding bitterness 
against this class was of a low order of human 
nature, instead of being Godlike. It is all the 
more unchristianlike when we consider that they 
were the better class of his own countrymen and 
professed the same religion he did, except that 
they rejected his divine pretensions. But in the 
44th verse he rushes to the opposite extreme and 
says, "Love your enemies," an admonition in di- 
rect conflict with the above, and one that has never 
been peculiar to his followers; nor is it one of 
nature's laws. 

Christianity has expended a vast amount of sen- 



158 THE SAFE SIDE. 

timent over this saying of Christ, claiming it to 
be quite the personification of goodness. But this 
requirement is not good, desirable, nor possible; 
and, though the Church has boasted so much over 
it as a sentiment peculiar to Christianity, the law 
that governed it through many centuries, judging 
from its practices, was to torture and burn your 
fellow Christian who slightly differs from you on points 
of doctrine. There never has existed a bod)^ of men 
in which there was less of the universal brother- 
hood of mankind than was manifested by these 
professed Christians during many centuries of 
the Christian era. 

Our likes and dislikes are not wholly at our 
command. Our enemies do not expect or desire 
our love. We cannot love our enemies and our 
families and country at the same time, for our 
enemies are often such because they would de- 
prive us of the one or the other. This life is a 
school in which to test the mind, and some of its 
grandest efforts have been drawn out in conten- 
tions and conflicts with enemies. Men often win 
the great respect of their enemies by the qualities 
they exhibit in contending with them. If it were 
universal for the good to love their enemies, the 
world would be possessed by thieves and robbers, 
while the good would pass a life of imbecility and 
poverty. 

This admonition to love your enemies and the 
one similar to it, to "Resist not evil: but whoso- 
ever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to 



THE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST. 1 59 

him the other also" (Matt, v, 39), are given as 
original with Christ and are held up as an embodi- 
ment of Christian virtue. Those words, however, 
give but an exaggerated description of amiability. 
The spirit is good, but the demanded exhibition 
of it is carried to an absurd extreme. The good 
that is implied in the sentiment is sufficient to 
command commendation, while the actual require- 
ment has been sufficiently impracticable to pre- 
vent any disposition to dispute its originality, and 
it therefore remains Christianity's own. It is 
true the Essenes expressed and practiced the same 
sentiments in the same exaggerated manner, but 
they are all dead, and Christianity alone remains 
to teach that if a man strikes us on one cheek we 
must turn to him the other also. 

Christians will admit their inability to perfectly 
follow this law; that, indeed, it was because of 
their inability, in part, that Christ came to save 
us and that he alone was perfect. But when we 
search the Scriptures, when we seek in that source 
of strange guidance to perfection for illustration 
and example, when we turn to him whose life was 
about to be offered a ransom for a sinful world, we 
find that in that all-important hour the blow came, 
and Jesus, lo! even Jesus resented it. He did not 
turn the other cheek, but he indignantly resented 
it. And his most holy historian, his most treas- 
ured friend, upon whose divine utterances the 
church has built most of its doctrines, that favored 
apostle, whose life (the church would have us 



l6o THE SAFE SIDE. 

believe) was prolonged that he might write his 
gospel, hastens to explain, in parenthesis, that 
Jesus was bound, which explanation can be for no 
other reason than to show that Jesus could not re- 
sist the blow physically. (John xviii, 23, 24.) 

This explanation is the more marked when we 
take into consideration the fact that the holy 
writer had already given this information in the 
12th verse of the same chapter. The idea con- 
veyed by this 24th verse is perfectly clear. The 
author particularly desired to impress upon the 
mind of his readers the fact that Jesus was bound, 
and, consequently, not censurable for simply ver- 
bally resenting a blow he could not return. 

I have no means of learning how long it had 
been customary to print this verse in parenthesis ; 
it is enough that all Bibles were so printed a short 
time ago and that the curved lines are always 
omitted now. 1 have seen those marks in no edi- 
tion printed since about 1850 and have found them 
omitted from but one edition printed before (1825). 
This is probably an act of the American Bible So- 
ciety. With those lines omitted, the mind of a 
reader would be less likely to be arrested by the 
passage and the nature of the gospel-writer's ex- 
planation, and the change was undoubtedly made 
for that reason. 

The late revisers of the New Testament were 
also keenly alive to the importance of correcting 
this great oversight of the inspired writer. They 
changed the time, but, in so doing, rob the pas- 



THE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST. l6l 

sage of any necessity for its presence in the 
book at all. Originally the verse was inserted 
thus: 

24 (Now Annas had sent him bound unto Cai- 
aphas the high priest.) 

In the revised edition it is inserted as follows : 

24 Annas therefore sent him bound unto Caiaphas 
the high priest. 

Reference to the chapter will show that, by this 
alteration, those revisers aim to make it appear 
that not until after the blow was Jesus bound 
and sent to Caiaphas ; and, consequently, that the 
events related between the 12th and 24th verses 
were in the presence of Annas. In the 12 th and 
13th verses it is stated that Jesus was bound " And 
led away to Annas first, (for he was father-in-law 
to Caiaphas, which was the high priest that same 
year)." 

But it is plain that the writer intended to be 
understood as leaving Jesus in the presence of 
Caiaphas from that verse. Immediately after and 
throughout the examination, the high priest is 
constantly referred to; he is represented, in the 
19th verse, as asking a question as to his doctrines, 
and, finally, Jesus was struck for " answering the 
high priest so. " The verse as falsified by the re- 
visers is an unnatural and contradictory repetition, 
while as originally given its meaning is clear. 
And, finally, with the 24th verse wholly expunged, 
as well as the account of Christ's verbal resent- 



l62 THE SAFE SIDE. 

ment, there still remains a necessity to explain 
why he did not turn the other cheek. 

Much has been said of the great delicacy those 
revisers employed in their work. All parts were 
studiously gone over by an American and an Eng- 
lish board separately and an agreement reached 
before any part of the new version was accepted. 
Their treatment of this most serious difficulty 
shows that such delicacy as they had was expended 
only upon points of doctrine within the system ; 
but, as to that which reflected upon the truth of 
the whole, they were a unit in destroying those 
records that they claimed were so sacred. 

As we see the tracks of a fox around the food it 
had tried to steal, so do we see in these elimina- 
tions and interpolations where the minds of influ- 
ential Christians have revolved around and dwelt 
upon this insurmountable obstacle. They have 
plainly keenly felt this objection, for their belief 
would not permit them to tamper with the Bible 
without most serious provocation. The gospel- 
writers' explanation was human, but they had 
been representing Jesus as more than human, that 
he was divine and taught the lofty sentiment to 
resist not evil, but when smitten upon one cheek 
to turn the other also ; and now to have it shown 
that, in the great crisis of his life, he failed to 
illustrate his teachings by an example, is a glaring 
inconsistency, dangerous to the support of modem 
Christianity. These men do not come forward 
and honestly set forth this difficulty and try to ex- 



THE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST. 163 

plain it, but they surreptitiously foist upon the 
public their alterations. They saw it touched 
Christianity in its most vital point and they sought 
to hide it from view. 

Much of the Sermon on the Mount is found scat- 
tered throughout the Gospel of Luke. Sometimes 
there are six or eight consecutive verses and in 
other instances but one. The longest is repre- 
sented as having been given in the same section 
of the country (near Capernaum) as stated in 
Matthew, but seemingly upon a different occasion. 
All the remainder found in Luke gives the parts 
in different places and at different times. As 
given in Matthew, it has been much improved, 
enlarged, and in part christianized. In doing this, 
the original revisers of the Gospel of Matthew left 
out certain parts that are in Luke, and one impor- 
tant verse, often quoted (Matt, v, 17), is made to 
give the exactly opposite meaning from the ver- 
sion in Luke. The Lord's prayer is enlarged and 
made more complete and made to appear as though 
given voluntarily ; but, according to Luke, it was 
given at the solicitation of the disciples to " Teach 
us to pray as John also taught his disciples." 

In the sixth chapter of Luke, from the 20th to 
the 49th verses, inclusive, are both the beginning 
and ending of the sermon, and it is evidently, ac- 
cording to that gospel, all there was of it. The 
blessings, with which the sermon begins, are 
fewer in number, and each is reversed by a curse 
for the opposite of those who were blessed. The 



164 THE SAFE SIDE. 

word "now" is left out of Matthew and the words 
"after righteousness" are substituted. This is 
an important alteration, for Jesus taught his fol- 
lowers that the events he predicted would take 
place within the lifetime of those then living. 
This part of Luke is as follows: 

20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, 
and said. Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the 
kingdom of God. 

21 Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall 
be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now : for ye 
shall laugh. 

22 Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and 
when they shall separate you from their company, 
and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as 
evil, for the Son of Man's sake. 

2^ Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for 
behold, your reward is great in heaven : for in the 
like manner did their fathers unto the prophets. 

24 But wo unto you that are rich! for ye have 
received your consolation. 

25 Wo unto you that are full! for ye shall hun- 
ger. Wo unto you that laugh now! for ye shall 
mourn and w^eep. 

26 Wo unto you, when all men shall speak well 
of you ! for so did their fathers to the false pro- 
phets. 

The 15th verse of the fifth chapter of Matthew 
is repeated twice in Luke (Chap, viii, 15, 16, 17, 
and xi, ^^). Luke xi, 9 to 13, inclusive, is in- 
serted in the sermon in Matthew. Also, Luke xii, 
22 to 35, is mostly inserted, though the 3 2d verse 
is omitted. It is: 

Fear not, little flock : for it is your Father's 
good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 



THE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST. 165 

In the sermon as given in Matthew is the fol- 
lowing (v, 17) : 

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, 
or the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to 
fulfill. 

In Luke, the opposite of this is given in the 
twelfth chapter: 

51 Suppose ye that I am come to give peace 
on earth? I tell you. Nay; but rather division. 

The 58th and 59th verses are also inserted in 
the sermon in Matthew; also, the 34th verse of 
chapter xiv and the i8th verse of chapter xvi, but, 
in Matthew, an important interpolation was made 
in the latter. In Luke, it reads : 

Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth 
another, committeth adultery; and whosoever 
marrieth her that is put away from her husband, 
committeth adultery. 

The words inserted in Matthew (v, 32) indicate 
the careful revision that gospel received from some 
source, for human nature demands that adultery 
be a sufficient cause for divorce. 

In Matthew viii, 4, Jesus is represented to have 
directed a man whom he was said to have miracu- 
lously cured of leprosy to practice a deception, if 
not to state that which was not true. The pas- 
sage has probably been distorted, but such sense 
as it yet contains shows that Jesus directed the 
man to misrepresent the manner of his cure. His 
words as given are : 



1 66 THE SAFE SIDE. 

And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; 
but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and 
offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testi- 
mony unto them. 

Jesus is represented in John vii, 8th to loth 
verses, to have deceived his disciples by stating 
'that he would not go up to the feast, for his time 
had not yet full come. But he did go as soon as 
his disciples left. 

If the sentiments of Jesus were so superior to 
anything before his age as to be conspicuous even 
now, then the contrast at that time must have 
been much more marked. But the early Chris- 
tians did not know of or seek converts through 
any such pretense. For proof of the divinity of 
Christ they relied upon the supernatural. Among 
the ignorant part of the ancients and with savages 
in all times, sickness was coupled with their su- 
perstition. Its coming and going were mysterious 
to them, and they attributed it to the direct inter- 
position of the gods. Hence all the miracles of 
Jesus were stated to have been with reference to 
healing the sick or feeding his starving followers. 
It was those miracles only that they offered as 
proof of his divinity. 

The miracles said to have been worked by Christ 
and his apostles were trifling as compared with 
those said to have been performed by church dig- 
nitaries in the first several centuries of the Chris- 
tian era, and the evidence that they were ever 
performed is still more trifling. Gibbon states 



THE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST. 1 6/ 

that intelligent men challenged certain leaders to 
work, before acceptable witnesses, even one of 
their boasted miracles, agreeing, if they were suc- 
cessful, to join them. But they could not do so. 
He further states that those early fathers who 
were said to work miracles did not know of or 
make such pretenses for themselves. 

Christianity is weakened among intelligent men 
by this pretense of supernatural evidence, and 
very many Christians now deny that any miracles 
were ever performed. The voluminous work en- 
titled Supernatural Religion gives a comprehen- 
sive review of all the evidence and probabilities 
bearing upon this subject. 

The limited account of Jesus is too short to fully 
confirm any personal characteristic, though there 
is some evidence of certain peculiarities, and 
meekness does not appear to be one of them. He 
seemed to have a habit of interspersing his re- 
marks with the expression " He that hath ears to 
hear, let him hear." It is found three times in 
Matthew, twice in one chapter (xi, 15 ;' xiii, 9, 43), 
and the same, slightly altered, in xv, 10. It is 
three times repeated in Mark, one instance being 
on a different occasion from either of those in 
Matthew. Authors and actors usually exaggerate 
any known peculiarities of those they are depict- 
ing. The author of Revelation pretends to have 
seen Jesus in the spirit and to have received the 
instructions set forth in the second and third 
chapters of that book. In doing this he would 



l68 THE SAFE SIDE. 

endeavor to imitate the style of Jesus so far as 
known, and would most likely overdo it, as is 
usual in such cases. In those two chapters this 
expression is repeated seven times, indicating that 
the writer understood that form of expression to 
be characteristic with Jesus. 

He used a meaningless expression twice under 
similar circumstances when speaking blindly (for 
his hearers) of his divine pretensions. It is, " If 
you will learn what that meaneth, I will have 
mercy and will not sacrifice." (Matt, ix, 13; 
xii, 7.) 

A more full and distinct expression of moral 
sentiments was one of the early wants developed 
by the growing church. With its revision of the 
gospels it evidently inserted enough to help it out 
in its creeds and to increase the limited reported 
sayings of Jesus. But they were incapable of 
making much improvement. His recorded senti- 
ments are as often the exact opposite of what we 
now call Christianity as the contrary. This is 
illustrated in the following : 

Matthew x, 34. Think not that I am come to 
send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, 
but a sword. 

Luke xvii, i. It is impossible but that offenses 
will come; but wo unto him through whom they 
come. 

Luke xi, 37. And as he spake, a certain Phari- 
see besought him to dine with him : and he went 
in and sat down to meat. 

38 And when the Pharisee saw it, he marveled 
that he had not first washed before dinner. 



THE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST. 169 

39 And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye 
Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and 
the platter ; but your inward part is full of raven- 
ing and wickedness. 

40 Ye fools, did not he that made that which is 
without, make that which is within also? 

45 Then answered one of the lawyers, and said 
unto him, Master, thus saying, thou reproachest 
us also. 

In Matthew xxvi, 23, Christ says: "He that 
dippeth his hand with me in the dish." This ex- 
poses a habit that would justify the Pharisee in 
marveling that he had not washed before dinner. 

Matthew xii, i. At that time Jesus went on 
the Sabbath-day through the corn, and his disciples 
were an hungered, and began to pluck the ears of 
corn, and to eat. 

Mark iv, 10. And when he was alone, they 
that were about him, with the twelve, asked of 
him the parable. 

(Asked him to explain the meaning of his par- 
able of the sower and the seed. ) 

II And he said unto them, Unto you it is given 
to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but 
unto them that are without, all these things are 
done in parables. 

. 12 That seeing they may see, and not perceive; 
and hearing they may hear, and not understand ; 
lest at any time they should be converted, and 
their sins should be forgiven them. 

Matthew xv, 22. And behold a woman of Ca- 
naan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto 
him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou 
son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed 
with a devil. 



170 THE SAFE SIDE. 

23 But he answered her not a word. And his 
disciples came and besought him, saying, Send 
her away; for she crieth after us. 

24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but 
unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 

25 Then came she and worshiped him, saying. 
Lord, help me. 

26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to 
take the children's bread and to cast it to dogs. 

Luke xiv, 26. If any man come tome, and hate 
not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, 
and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life 
also, he cannot be my disciple. 

Jesus is represented as consigning people and 
cities to perdition for very slight reasons. In 
some places half of a chapter will be of this nature. 
Those cities that would not accept the doctrines 
of his disciples were in particular included in his 
condemnation. He said, " Brothers shall deliver 
up brothers to death, and the father the child: and 
the children shall rise up against their parents and 
cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be 
hated of all men for my sake." The twenty-third 
chapter of Matthew is mostly given up to curses 
of this nature, seven or eight of the verses begin- 
ning with the words, " Wo unto you. Scribes and 
Pharisees, hypocrites!" Two verses in particular 
ought to be noticed, as the spirit of them is in even 
more marked contrast to that which is claimed as 
the Christian spirit. The men alluded to were of 
the better class and it seems zealous workers in 
their religion, which was the same as Christ's ex- 
cept that they neither believed in nor associated 
with him. He said (Matt, xxiii, 14, 15): 



THE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST. 171 

Wo unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! 
for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretense 
make long prayer : therefore ye shall receive the 
greater damnation. 

Wo unto you. Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! 
for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte ; 
and when he is made, ye make him twofold more 
the child of hell than yourselves. 

The words meek and lowly became attached to Jesus 
through his own assertion to that effect (Matt, xi, 
29) ; the matter of the New Testament otherwise 
would not suggest them. 

The following I believe to be a complete list of 
all the expressions of Jesus recorded in the gospels 
in which there are either blessings or expressions 
of an opposite nature. 

BLESSINGS. DENUNCIATIONS. 

MATTHEW. 

V, 3» 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, VIII, 12. 

II, 12, 13, 14, 17,44. X, 15, 34, 35, 7,6. 
XI, 28. XI, 21, 22, 23, 24. 

XIII, 15. XIII, 50. 

XVI, 17. XVIII, 6, 7. 

XXIII, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 
19, 23, 25, 27, 29, ^z. 

XXIV, 7, 19. 

MARK. 

X, 16. Ill, 29. 

IX, 42. 

XII, 40. 

XIII, 8, 12, 17, 19, 20. 

XIV, 2 1. 

XVI, 14. After the res- 
urrection. 



1/2 THE SAFE SIDE. 

LUKE. 

VI, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28. VI, 24, 25, 26. 

VII, 23. X,I2, 13, 14, 15. 

X, 23. XI, 40, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 

XII, 8, 32, 37. 52. 

XXIV, 30, 51. XII, 5, 9, 49, 51, 52, 53. 

XIII, 3,. 5, 27, 28. 
XVII, I, 2. 

XX, 47. 

XXI, 10, II, 23. 

XXII, 22. 

John. 
Ill, 16, 17. Ill, 18. 

XIV, 27. 

XV, 12. 

The Gospel of John studiously improves the 
character of Christ as compared with that exhib- 
ited in the synoptic gospels. All but one of his 
upbraidings and curses were omitted, and that one 
was inserted for a purpose, as will be shown. 

Expressions and sentiments like those just 
quoted are common enough to indicate a very dif- 
ferent spirit in Jesas from that commonly attrib- 
uted to him, particularly when there is doubt of 
much of the better sentiments ever having been 
uttered by him. As before stated, John the Bap- 
tist is probably entitled to much of the credit that 
has been given to Christ. However, the best 
sentiments of the Bible were never for a moment 
dependent upon prophets and divines or any 
favored few. They are self-evident facts, so com- 
monplace as to suggest themselves to anybody of 
fair understanding. 



THE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST. 1 73 

But Jesus did- enjoin one requirement that filled 
a very important part in the perpetuation of 
Christianity. In fact, but for it, the system would 
not have existed any length of time after his death, 
and it is, therefore, the only thing he materially 
contributed to hand Christianity down to our time. 
In a stairway the lower step performs a like service 
with those farther up and in some respects is even 
more important than any other, but those ascend- 
ing may be said to have no further use for it after 
once passing it. 

So with the requirement in question: it was 
obeyed only by his immediate followers. The 
church has long since ignored it, as it generally 
does any of his directions with which it is incon- 
venient to comply. This demand of Christ was 
important only in what it necessitated and led to : 
it filled an indispensable temporary service and 
made possible what followed, but once passed was 
not needed again. 

This all-important service was rendered by the 
simple requirement of Jesus that those who joined 
his followers must give their property to the 
whole body to be used in common. The New 
Testament represents him as requiring that the 
property be given to the poor. But they were the 
poor, and it is shown that immediately after the 
crucifixion that regulation was in full force, which, 
coupled with the demand of Jesus to "sell that 
thou hast, give to the poor and follow me," shows 
that that regulation was demanded by him. 



174 THE SAFE SIDE. 

When a body of men own property in common, 
some one or more must be agreed upon to hold, 
distribute, and account for it. This involves an 
organization and officers, and from that moment 
those officers have a personal interest foreign to 
the objects of the association. The severity of 
this requirement made that interest the largest 
possible in proportion to the numbers involved. 
The temporary nature of the superstitious ex- 
pectations of those men did not admit of the 
thought of an organization, nor did they possess 
sufficient intelligence to know the advantage of 
one. An organization was unavoidable under 
such a requirement as Jesus made, and it would 
not have taken place without it. 

The New Testament shows the existence of this 
enforced organization, and an account of its en- 
largement by the selection of a second and inferior 
class of officers is given in Acts vi, 2 to 7. This 
organization, originating in this simple manner, 
never ceased from that time, and has been its one 
greatest power in perpetuating Christianity. The 
polytheists three or four centuries later recognized 
this great advantage of the Christian church and 
tried to revive the worship of the gods by a simi- 
lar organization. But they began too late, their 
habits and customs had been too long established, 
and their effort put them in the inferior position 
of imitators. 

Dr. Doellinger, in his First Ages of Christianity, 
devotes a number of pages to the teachings of 



THE TEACHINGS OF CHRIST. 1 75 

Christ, and, in so doing, he supplies a fair illus- 
tration of the usual manner of treating this subject. 
His comments are of an ambiguous nature. He 
simply writes a pious homily, to which believers 
will meekly assent as an act of devotion. No 
writer ever presumes to point out the particular 
words that convey those wise instructions, for 
there are no such words. Those teachings, like 
all that is Godlike in Christ, dwell only in the 
imagination of his worshipers. 



CHAPTER IX. 

JOSEPHUS. 



CHRISTIANS greatly feel the want of accounts 
of Jesus by contemporary writers other than 
those among his followers. They recognize the 
self-evident fact that, if some of the events said to 
have been connected with him had actually taken 
place, there would have been other accounts, and 
more reliable ones, because they would have been 
by disinterested parties. The total absence of any 
records of those events by such writers is a loud 
assertion that those representations were not true. 
John the Baptist attracted even more attention 
than is chronicled by the apostles, they having 
held back a knowledge of his prominence rather 
than otherwise. The high position given him by 
Josephus makes the latter's evident ignorance of 
the existence of Christ all the more significant. 

Churchmen have keenly felt this silence. Of 
all historians, Josephus, in particular, should have 
heard of Christ. He was a Jew, born probably 
about seven years before the crucifixion, who 
spent much of his life in office, not only in Judea, 
but part of the time holding high authority in 
Galilee, throughout the very region where Christ 



JOSEPHUS. 177 

had been some twenty to thirty years before. He 
wrote of a village called Capernaum and mentions 
all the Roman and Jewish officers named in the 
New Testament, with some of whom he was per- 
sonally acquainted. His official career began 
while Paul was still on the field of action, and 
it is even very probable that they were at onetime 
fellow passengers upon the same ship and were 
shipwrecked together. Both were en 7'oute to Rome 
and the same event started both on their journey. 

Josephus was going to Rome for the purpose of 
interceding with Nero for the release of some Jews 
whom Felix had sent there under bonds. He 
does not state that he went there while Felix was 
procurator, but that the acts* that eventually led 
him to make that journey were committed by 
Felix. The probabilities of obtaining the release 
of those men would be greater when that officer's 
successor was appointed, while, on the other hand, 
it might have been dangerous, both to Josephus 
and to the association of citizens who sent him, to 
make the effort while Felix was still in office. 
The appointment of Festus to succeed him was the 
natural and probable cause of the effort being 
made, and hence Josephus must have undertaken 
his journey very soon thereafter. None of those 
procurators was in office long, as Nero sent at 
least three (Festus, Albinus, and Gessius Florus) 
to Judea during the fourteen years in which he 
was Emperor. Josephus shows that the official 
term of Festus was short, as the account of his 



178 THE SAFE SIDE. 

death is closely coupled with his first appearance 
as procurator. When Josephus returned to Judea, 
Albinus was in office and apparently soon after- 
wards was succeeded by Florus. This allows 
abundant time for the journey and a long tarry in 
Rome, dating from the time of Festus. 

Paul had been held two years under bonds by 
Felix, who hoped to be paid a sum of money for 
his release, but Festus, evidently a better man, 
started Paul on his long-delayed journey. The 
same circumstance, therefore, to wit, the com- 
mencement of the administration of the Procurator 
Festus, was the cause of the journey to Rome of 
both Paul and Josephus. The accounts of each 
represent that they were shipwrecked, and evi- 
dently in quite the same place, and each shows 
the vessel to have been an unusually large one for 
those days. This is indicated by the number of 
people on board, which Paul states to have been 
276 (Acts xxvii), while Josephus gives the number 
as about 600. But Paul's count, no doubt, covered 
only those who got ashore. In the excitement of 
the night before, numbers could have left such a 
crowded ship unknown to Paul, while, on the other 
hand, the round number stated by Josephus shows 
that he guessed at the number and, as is usual in 
such cases, placed the figures too high. He wrote, 
also, fifty years afterwards. 

Paul gives many details, while Josephus gives 
but few. According to Paul, the vessel went 
ashore on an island, but Josephus 's account indi- 



JOSEPHUS. 179 

cates that the vessel foundered, though that is not 
clear. He wrote : 

About 600 in number swam for our lives all 
the night; when upon the first appearance of the 
day, and upon our sight of a ship of Cyrene, I and 
some others, eighty in all, by God's providence, 
prevented the rest, and were taken up into other 
ships. 

Paul states that the shipmen tried to flee out of 
the ship when they let down the boats the night 
before the vessel went ashore, and it may be that 
as many as eighty did so abandon the ship in boats 
and on floats. This is not improbable, according 
to Paul's account, and satisfactorily meets the ac- 
count of the VvTeck as given by Josephus. In the 
excitement that must have prevailed there would 
naturally be confusion in their statements. Those, 
also, who abandon a vessel do so under the sup- 
posed certainty that it will go down and would 
naturally afterwards suppose that it had done so. 

If Paul and Josephus were fellow passengers, it 
would be an interesting coincidence, but one that 
Christian writers would not endeavor to point out, 
for the reason that it brings in sharper contrast 
Josephus's utter ignorance of the Christian move- 
ment. Their position on board would have been 
widely different, Josephus being a passenger of 
some distinction, while Paul was a prisoner and 
making professions which, if noticed by Josephus 
at all, would but have excited his ridicule. 

For such a man, having such experience as 
Josephus had in the very home of Christ, and so 



l8o THE SAFE SIDE. 

soon after his time, and writing a history of that 
country, embracing every year of the lifetime of 
Christ — for such a man to have no word of him is 
equivalent to proof that the supernatural events 
related in the New Testament in connection with 
Jesus Christ did not occur. Josephus wrote his 
histories about the time or before the earliest un- 
canonical gospels were written. He was as old 
as any of the writers of those gospels. He was 
there upon the ground at the time many of the 
events they recorded were said to have taken 
place and was an important officer the latter part 
of that time. He was far more intelligent than 
they, as is attested by his histories, which extend 
greatly beyond the capacities of any of the gospel - 
writers, canonical or uncanonical. He was a wit- 
ness on precisely the same footing that those 
gospel- writers were as to time, place, and experi- 
ence, and a much superior one, because of his 
superior intellectual and social position and be- 
cause of his disinterestedness. 

But the church makes saints of its own witnesses 
and sanctifies and magnifies their testimony, and 
equally denounces Josephus, not for anything he 
wrote of Christ or of the Christians, but because 
he did not write of them at all. He comments 
favorably of John the Baptist and equally well of 
the Essenes, but as for the wonderful events re- 
corded in the New Testament he had nothing to 
write, for there had been no such events. 

Another Jewish officer, named Justus, also held 



JOSEPHUS. l8l 

office in Galilee during the same time that Josephus 
did. They were so similar in position and ex- 
perience as to have had strong feelings of rivalry, 
and that circumstance may have had something 
to do with the writing by each of a history of 
those times. Josephus complains of Justus, in 
that he had not given just accounts of him. There 
was the same reason, therefore, that Justus should 
have given accounts of Christ as there was that 
Josephus should, and his silence emphasizes the 
silence of the latter. The history by Justus must 
have been even more objectionable in that respect, 
for the church, which certainly would have pre- 
served it if not detrimental to its interest, has not 
done so. That history is destroyed. It was in 
existence as late as the ninth century,' at which 
time Photius, patriarch of Constantinople, wrote 
of Justus that: "He makes not the least mention 
of the appearance of Christ or of what things hap- 
pened to him. " 

Plutarch, also, was contemporaneous with Paul 
and Josephus. He was probably 7 to 15 years 
younger than the latter, and, as a young man, 
may have had some personal knowledge of Paul, 
for he was a Greek of distinction, filling important 
public duties in different parts of the Empire, 
having journeyed, it is supposed, as far as Alex- 
andria, and must necessarily have visited many of 
the places frequented by Paul. At least, it is 
hardly possible that Plutarch was ignorant of the 

'Rev. Robt. Traill's Josephus. 



1 82 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Christian movement, for he wrote some of his 
works late in life, when Christianity must have 
grown to considerable proportions. 

Plutarch's Lives numbers 67, of which only 50 
are now extant. Only 8 of those Lives were of 
men living within the Christian era, they being 
the first 8 emperors, as follows: Augustus, Tibe- 
rius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, and 
Vitellius. Christ was born in the fourteenth year 
of the reign of Augustus, and all the events re- 
lated in the New Testament were within his and 
the four succeeding reigns. Vitellius also, before 
he was emperor, had been president of Syria, and 
the several notices which Josephus makes of him 
indicate that he was long in office there. His 
authority was superior to Pilate's, for he deprived 
that officer of his office and sent him back to Rome. 
Josephus writes of Vitellius in the paragraph 
immediately preceding his account of John the 
Baptist, and again in the paragraph next follow- 
ing. In this he seemingly locates the execution 
of the Baptist within the presidency of Vitellius, 
in which case the crucifixion must have taken 
place while he was in office. He was an officer 
to whom the Nazarenes could have appealed in 
case Pilate exceeded his authority in ordering the 
crucifixion, and the fact that after that event he 
was in disgrace with Vitellius ought to have turned 
the eyes of Christians upon the latter officer and 
secured the preservation of any biography of him 
that might have been written. So far as Plu- 



JOSEPHUS. 183 

tarch's Lives is concerned, it was more important 
in the history of Christianity to preserve his Lives 
of the first five emperors and the eighth emperor 
than to preserve all the remainder of the 67. But 
those 6 are numbered with the 17 missing; not 
one has been preserved. The chances that any 
one would be among the 17 is as i to 4, but the 
chance that a particular 6 would be among them 
is as I to 3,748. 

Thirteen of those biographies were of the lead- 
ing men in those events that led to the imperial 
form of government, commencing with Marius, a 
century before. They were the great actors in 
one of the most important epochs in history, and 
hence their preservation, outside of the church, 
was more important than the preservation of all 
the remaining 67. This seems to have been rec- 
ognized, for not one of them has been lost. The 
list is as follows: Caius, Marius, Sylla, Tiberius 
Gracchus, Caius Gracchus, Lucullus, Marcus 
Crassus, Sertorius, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Cato, 
Cicero, Brutus, and Mark Antony. 

It was impossible for Plutarch to mention any- 
thing connected with Christianity, except in his 
biographies of those 8 emperors, for all the re- 
mainder were of men that lived before the time 
of Christ. But only his unimportant biographies 
of Galba and Otho have come down to us. The 
political experience of both those men was very 
short and had been in Spain, where Christianity 
had not penetrated, and, hence, could not in any 



l84 THE SAFE SIDE. 

way have been connected with them. The pres- 
ervation of those two short and unimportant 
biographies makes the loss of the other six all the 
more marked. Chance could not have preserved 
the 13 and lost the 6. Those biographies have 
been designedly suppressed, and, in their suppres- 
sion, the church confesses that he gave testimony 
adverse to the statements made in the New Testa- 
ment.^ 

Among the numerous other works of his that 
have been lost are the following, the titles to 
which suggest that they, also, may have conflicted 
with Christianity or, at least, with its claimed 
originality: Two books on Introduction of the 
Soul, two books of Extracts from the Philoso- 
phers, three books on Sense, and two books of 
Proverbs. 

But there were reasons for the suppression of the 
works of Josephus also, and they probably would 
have been but for a forged interpolation of Christ 
that they contain. Of all historians, Josephus 



^ A French translation of Plutarch's Lives, published 
early in this century, contains a biography of both Au- 
gustus and Titus, written by M. Dacier. This is dis- 
tinctly stated on the title-page, and matter inserted in the 
narrative shows that no deception was intended, as com- 
parison with modern events is made. ' Nevertheless, some 
have been misled by this into a supposition that they were 
the work of Plutarch. The too conspicuous announce- 
ment on the title-page is often overlooked, in accordance 
with that peculiarity of human nature which Edgar A. 
Poe has so interestingly portrayed in his story entitled 
The Purloined Letter. 



JOSEPHUS. 185 

ought to have known Jlsus, and, if he could be 
shown to have acknowledged him to be the Christ, 
it would be most valuable testimony. As between 
forging such an acknowledgment or suppressing 
his works, the primitive church chose the former. 
But for that forgery his writings would have gone 
with all the numerous lost works that would, 
unitedly, have made a belief in the divinity of 
Christ an impossibility. Eusebius, bishop of 
Caesarea, is charged with being the author of this 
fraudulent passage. It is inserted in Antiquities 
of the Jews, Book xviii, Chap. 3, and is as follows : 

At this time appeared a certain Jesus, a wise 
man, if indeed he may be called a man, for he was 
a worker of miracles, a teacher of such men as re- 
ceived the truth with joy, and he drew to himself 
many Jews and many also of the Greeks. This 
was the Christ. And when, at the instigation of 
our chief men, Pilate condemned him to the cross, 
those who had first loved him did not fall away. 
For he appeared to them alive again on the third 
day, according as the holy prophets had declared 
this and coimtless other marvels to him. To this 
day the sect of Christians, called after him, still 
exist. 

Judge Waite, in his History of the Christian 
Religion, says: 

If the passage in Josephus concerning Christ 
were genuine, then the failure to connect him with 
John the Baptist would be utterly incomprehen- 
sible. But, since it is the general verdict of 
scholars that the passage in the third chapter of 
the eighteenth book of the Antiquities, wherein it 
is stated that Jesus was the Christ, etc., is an in- 



l86 THE SAFE SIDE. 

terpolated forgery, the mMter appears very differ- 
ently. 

Rev. Robert Traill, in his preface to his trans- 
lation of part of the works of Josephus, refers to 
the large amount of controversy regarding that 
passage and admits its unauthenticity, a conchi- 
sion which seems to have become quite general. 

Under the head of "Jesus Christ," in the En- 
cyclopaedia Britannica, the writer says : 

That Josephus wrote the whole passage as it 
now stands no sane critic can believe. Vespasian, 
not Jesus, was the Messiah of that apostate Jew. 
There are, however, two reasons which are alone 
sufficient to prove that the whole passage was 
spurious: one that it was unknown to Origen and 
the earlier fathers, the other that its place in the 
text is uncertain. It is now found after the his- 
torian's notice of Pilate, but the remarks of Euse- 
bius show that in his time it was found before 
them. 

From the same work, under the head of " Jo- 
sephus," is the following: 

In a famous passage in his Antiquities of the 
Jews, first quoted by Eusebius, he speaks of Christ 
as something more than human and attests his 
miracles, death, and resurrection. The authen- 
ticity of the passage has been very much disputed. 
If it be admitted (and the external evidence in its 
favor is very strong), then Josephus must have 
been a Christian. On the other hand, the com- 
mon belief that he was not a Christian condemns 
the passage as spurious. But it happens that Jo- 
sephus nowhere else in all his writings commits 
himself in favor of Christianity. As an impartial 
historian he could not but accept it as an historical 



JOSEPHUS. 187 

fact; yet, even though he may have believed in 
its truth, he was too skeptical and indifferent to 
make himself a martyr for the sake of any truth 
or doctrine whatsoever. ' It is most probable that 
the passage in question, without being absolutely 
spurious, has been modified into its present form by 
Eusebius, who is well known to have often taken 
such a liberty in his quotations. 

This last quotation supplies an illustration of 
what Christians look upon as pious treatment 
of anything unfavorably affecting their religion. 
This writer evidently believes the reference to 
Christ to be a forgery, yet he sorrowfully and but 
partially admits it, and does what he can to en- 
courage his readers to believe it was not a forgery. 
It was his true religious duty to be as indignant 
over this forgery as over any other, but he has 
only tender words for Eusebius, who committed the 
act, and states that he probably modified it into its 
present form. He piously, as understood within 
the Christian system, states that the external evi- 
dence in its favor is very strong. 

Now it is mostly by external evidence that the 
account is known to be a forgery. If it were au- 
thentic, external evidence would prove it beyond 
question. If it was fraudulent, there could be no 
external evidence in its favor ; the nature of the 
question does not admit of it. If the quotation 
were written by Josephus, it would have been 
possible for other writers of those times to com- 
ment upon it; but if it was not originally in his 
works there could necessarily be no comments of 



1 88 THE SAFE SIDE. 

any nature. The absence of such comments by 
early Christian writers, who would have been glad 
to notice it if it had been there, is the strong ex- 
ternal evidence that Josephus did not write it. 

In Antiquities of the Jews, xx, 9, mention is 
made of James the brother of Jesus " who was 
called Christ." This little item comes in natu- 
rally enough, following as it does the famous 
fraudulent testimony. Having previously suppos- 
ably mentioned Christ in most favorable terms, it 
would be natural to expect that he would be men- 
tioned again, and, having once stated who Christ 
was, it would be sufficient when mentioning Jesus 
to state that it was he who was called Christ. It 
would simply identify a man previously men- 
tioned. 

But with the fraudulent passage expunged this 
notice of Christ stands alone, the only one in the 
works of Josephus, and as such it detracts from 
the importance of Christ rather than the contrary. 
If Josephus really wrote those four words then he 
knew there was a man Jesus having the especial 
title of Christ, but occupying a position so unim- 
portant as to be of no possible interest and unworthy 
of an account in his history. It would not be nat- 
ural, however, under such circumstances, to make 
even this one notice. If it was worth stopping to 
write who was called Christ, it was equally worth 
while to state why he was so called. Other facts, 
however, connected with this statement, tend to 
show that Josephus never wrote those words, but 



JOSEPHUS. 189 

in place of them had written these words : the son 
of Da?nneus. 

This account of James sets forth that the office 
of procurator was vacant three months between 
the death of Festus and the arrival of his suc- 
cessor, Albinus, and that Ananias, the high priest, 
took advantage of this to cause the brother of 
Jesus, whose name was James, to be stoned to 
death. The account further shows that James 
was of importance enough for this to be of great 
public interest, resulting in the people sending to 
Albinus before his arrival and in Albinus writing 
to Jerusalem about it also before his arrival ; and 
further that King Agrippa, finding that Albinus 
was angry, caused Ananias to be removed and 
made Jesus the son of Damneus high priest in his 
stead. 

All this is suggestive that Ananias had taken 
advantage of the absence of the procurator to cause 
the death of a rival and that indignation, together 
with sympathy for James's family, caused the re- 
moval of Ananias and the substitution of Jesus 
the brother of James (and son of Damneus) in his 
place. 

When, ten or twenty years later, Josephus wrote 
his histories, he knew this man Jesus as one of the 
high priests, and as such, in Josephus's ideas, he 
was a distinguished character, supposably known 
to his readers, and he (Josephus) identified James 
by him. He gave the name of Jesus first, the 
passage being constructed thus : The brother of Jesus 



IQO THE SAFE SIDE. 

who was called Christy whose name was James. The 
greater importance of Jesus in the mind of Jo- 
sephus is the only explanation that can be given 
for this labored transposition of the two names. 
But, if he was in truth referring to Christ, then 
the superior position given him increases the in- 
consistency of there being no further mention of 
him, Josephus would then be identifying one 
unknown man by a second unknown man and 
identifying the latter by an unknown title. He 
would have given the less known man the supe- 
rior position. The name of Jesus under such cir- 
cumstances was uncalled for. 

Furthermore, if this were the brother of Christ, 
the account would have appeared in the New 
Testament. Such an important event as the 
martyrdom of the brother of Jesus could not have 
been overlooked. Some or all of Paul's epistles 
from Rome must have been written after this oc- 
currence. It must have taken place at about the 
time of his arrival there, for, as stated, Festus 
was evidently procurator but a short time. All 
the gospels were written after this time. 

This high priest, Jesus the son of Damneus, was 
succeeded by another Jesus the son of Gamaliel. 
(See Acts v, 34.) Necessarily whenever either 
of these two was referred to he was distinguished 
from the other by stating the name of the father. 

This Josephus never failed to do in his several 
references to each of those two men. The passage, 
therefore, as originally given by him wasundoubt- 



JOSEPHUS. 191 

edly in these words : " The brother of Jesus the 
son of Damneus, whose name was James;" but 
when, from 200 to 250 years later, Eusebius in- 
serted the fraudulent testimo7iy he would naturally 
support it by at least one more reference to Christ, 
and at this point he found his favorable oppor- 
tunity. He undoubtedly erased the Greek equiv- 
alent for the words " the son of Damneus " and 
substituted in Greek the words " who was called 
Christ" 

When there is none to criticise and object and 
the great public is all one way on anyone subject, 
it is surprising to what great lengths even intel- 
ligent men will go in their unsupported, unau- 
thorized statements. In the cause of Christianity 
one writer will endeavor to get over a difficulty by 
some preposterous improbability as vague as a 
dream, and all other Christians will thenceforth 
accept such explanation as a proven fact. In this 
way quite a theory has been built up in efforts to 
explain away Josephus's silence as regards Christ. 
His visit to Rome was to ask favors of Nero, in 
which he was successful. 

And now in explanation of Josephus's silence 
it is suggested that he himself was possibly a 
Christian and withheld accounts of Christ through 
fear of Nero. Some such theory as this is ad- 
vanced in face of the fact that Josephus wrote his 
histories long after the death of Nero and when 
that name was odious. He also gave very unfa- 
vorable accounts of that emperor in his history, 



192 THE SAFE SIDE. 

sufficiently so to have incurred the displeasure of 
some of his influential friends, if any such were 
then living. On the other hand, it will be shown 
that there is no satisfactory evidence that Nero 
had any feeling about the Christians or any knowl- 
edge of them. There was not the least danger in 
anybody being a Christian who wished to. 

Gibbon states that Tacitus, the author of the 
account of this persecution, wrote it sixty years 
after and would necessarily color it in the light 
and knowledge of Christians of that time rather 
than of the sixty years before. He writes that 
there were two sects of Galileans: 

But the most opposite to each other in their 
manners and principles: the disciples who had 
embraced the faith of Jesus of Nazareth and the 
zealots who had followed the standard of Judas the 
Gaulonite. The former were the friends, the 
latter the enemies of human kind ; and the only 
resemblance between them consisted in the inflex- 
ible constancy which, in the defense of their cause, 
rendered them insensible of death and tortures. 
The followers of Judas, who impelled their coun- 
trymen to rebellion, were soon buried under the 
ruins of Jerusalem ; whilst those of Jesus, known 
by the more celebrated name of Christians, dif- 
fused themselves over the Roman Empire. How 
natural was it for Tacitus, in the time of Hadrian, 
to appropriate to the Christians the guilt and the 
sufferings which he might, with far greater truth 
and justice, have attributed to a sect whose odious 
memory was almost extinguished. Whatever 
opinions may be entertained of this conjecture 
(for it is no more than a conjecture), it is evident 
that the effect, as well as the cause, of Nero's per- 
secution was confined to the walls of Rome, and 



JOSEPHUS. 193 

that the religious tenets of the Galileans, or 
Christians, were never made a subject of punish- 
ment or even inquiry. 

Gibbon would not have advanced this conjecture 
if he had not believed it to be well founded. But 
he was unnecessarily cautious. The New Testa- 
ment supplies evidence that this conjecture could 
have been recorded as an absolute fact. The 
probabilities are that at the time of that persecu- 
tion there was not in existence a religious sect 
known by the appellation of Christians. There 
were contentions that ultimately led to the pro- 
duction of that word, but it is doubtful if as yet 
the word itself had ever been uttered. 

Only a short time before in Jerusalem the Jews 
called Paul a " ringleader of the sect of the Naz- 
arenes" (Acts xxiv,5), and certainly, if he and his 
companions were not known at that time as Chris- 
tiafts in the very home of Christianity, it is not 
reasonable to suppose that at about that time they 
were known by that name in Rome, particularly 
when, as previously shown, the Romans at the 
end of the second century were still unfamiliar 
with it. 

Tacitus was born at about the time of the event 
he records, and therefore could not have based his 
account upon personal observation, neither could 
there have been records from which he could have 
taken the name of Christ and the manner and time 
of his death. The account is suspiciously accurate 
in that respect. Josephus wrote his Antiquities of 
13 



194 THE SAFE SIDE. 

thejewsin A. D. 93, and though the event had oc- 
curred in his lifetime and he had been in Rome 
near or at the time, he knew nothing of it. This 
being the oldest mention of Christians outside of 
the New Testament, by either profane or Chris- 
tian writers, the account is here given : 

With this view [that is, to divert suspicion], 
Nero inflicted the most exquisite tortures on those 
men who, under the vulgar appellation of Chris- 
tians, were already branded with deserved infam)". 
They derived their name and origin from one 
Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, had suffered 
death by the sentence of the procurator Pontius 
Pilate. For a while this dire superstition was 
checked, but it again burst forth and not only 
spread itself over Judea, the first seat of this mis- 
chievous sect, but was even introduced into Rome, 
the common asylum which receives and protects 
whatever is impure, whatever is atrocious. The 
confessions of those who were seized discovered a 
great multitude of their accomplices, and they 
were all convicted, not so much for the crime of 
setting fire to the city as for their hatred of hu- 
man kind. Some were nailed on crosses, others 
sewn up in the skins of wild beasts and exposed 
to the fury of dogs; others, again, smeared over 
with combustible materials, were used as torches 
to illuminate the darkness of the night. The 
gardens of Nero were destined for the melancholy 
spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse race 
and honored with the presence of the emperor, 
who mingled with the populace in the dress and 
attitude of a charioteer. The guilt of the Chris- 
tians deserved indeed the most exemplary punish- 
ment, but the public abhorrence was changed into 
commiseration, from the opinion that those un- 
happy wretches were sacrificed, not so much to 
public welfare as to the cruelty of a jealous tyrant. 



JOSEPHUS. 195 

But was Josephus so utterly silent regarding 
Christ? Is it true that all profane writers of his 
time omitted any mention of him or his proselytes? 
May it not be that certain accounts did have features 
suggestive of Christ, but in such an objectionable 
shape as to make Christians more interested in 
denying than admitting the connection? Objec- 
tionable accounts would be worse to a believer than 
no account at all, and, as nearly all writings on 
this subject, that have come down to us, were by 
Christian believers, written in the interest of the 
church, their statements that there was no men- 
tion of Christ in any particular work mean that 
there was no satisfactory mention of him. 

Nothing in the New Testament indicates that 
Judea was otherwise than peaceful at that time, 
but Josephus shows that the country was in turmoil 
and confusion. Between Roman officers, Jewish 
officers, and bands of robbers, there seemed to be 
rivalry as to which should rob the people most. 
Any man seemed to be an officer who could secure 
a following of a band of men, and whether he 
would be called robber or patriot turned upon but 
a slight difference of success or political change; 
and in this boiling mass of humanity we obtain 
several glimpses of that upon which some of the 
accounts of Christ were based ; not that they were 
numerous, for the New Testament account itself 
is exceedingly limited. 

It is important to take into consideration the 
fact that there is usually confusion as to dates of 



196 THE SAFE SIDE. 

events that are known only by tradition. It is the 
events rather than dates that are repeated. In 
the time of Josephus this carelessness of dates 
was greater than it is now, for even in his care- 
fully prepared history he gives no dates, neither 
does he in his life, not even so much as the year 
of his own birth. Neither are there any dates 
given in the New Testament. If the historians 
of those times made so little effort to give us an 
idea of the time of the events they recorded, how 
much more probable is it that rumors of events 
upon which parts of the New Testament were 
based should be associated in the mind of Josephus 
with those of his own lifetime. The several in- 
cidents in his works similar to those in the New 
Testament are nearly all so represented by him, 
and consequently at a time quite twenty-five years 
later. 

In the great number of sects existing at that 
time, with only verbal accounts of them, the acts 
of others might be attributed to Christ, while his 
acts might equally erroneously be attributed to 
others. Errors of this kind would be as natural 
to writers of the gospels as to Josephus. They 
would be likely to incorporate ignorantly the acts 
of others which were similar and had occurred at 
any time before those gospels were written. 

The most striking similarity is in Antiquities of 
the Jews, Book xx. Chap. 8, and is as*follows: 

And now those im posters and deceivers per- 
suaded the multitude to follow them into the wilder- 



JOSEPHUS. 197 

ness and pretended that they would exhibit manifest 
wonders and signs that should be performed by the 
providence of God. Moreover, there came out of 
Egypt about this time to Jerusalem one that said 
he was a prophet and advised the multitude of 
the common people to go along with him to the 
Moimt of Olives, as it was called, which lay over 
against the city, and at a distance of five furlongs. 
He said farther that he would show them from 
hence how, at his command, the walls of Jerusalem 
would fall down. 

Josephus has the same account more in full in 
his Jewish Wars, Book ii. Chap. 13 : 

There was also another body of wicked men 
gotten together, not so impure in their actions, 
but more wicked in their intentions, which laid 
waste the happy state of the city no less than did 
those murderers. These were such men as de- 
ceived and deluded the people under pretense of 
divine inspiration, but were for procuring innova- 
tions and changes of the government; and these 
prevailed with the multitude to act like madmen, 
and went before them into the wilderness as pre- 
tending that God would there show them the signal 
of liberty. But Felix sent horsemen and footmen, 
both armed, who destroyed a great number of 
them. But there was an Egyptian false prophet 
that did the Jews more mischief than the former; 
for he was a cheat, and pretended to be a prophet 
also, and got together 30,000 men that were de- 
luded by him ; those he led round about from the 
wilderness to the mount which was called the 
Mount of Olives, and was ready to break into Jeru- 
salem by force from that place. * * * But Felix 
prevented his attempts, etc. 

In his autobiography, Josephus writes of one 
Jesus and his friend John the son of Levi, and 



198 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Simon, John's brother, who seemed to give him 
considerable trouble and against whom he had 
very bitter feelings. These men were more or 
less prominent and, according to Josephus, law- 
less. He wrote of Jesus in part and of his own 
office as follows : 

Now as soon as I was come to Galilee and had 
learned of this state of things by the information 
of such as told me of them, I wrote to the Sanhe- 
drim at Jerusalem about them and required their 
directions what I should do. Their direction was 
that I should continue there, and that, if my fel- 
low legates were willing, I should join with them 
in the care of Galilee. * "^ ■^' So I removed to- 
gether with them from the city of Sepphoris, and 
came to a certain village called Bethmaus, four 
furlongs distant from Tiberias. ^ * * I told them 
that I was sent to them by the people of Jerusalem 
as a legate, together with those other priests, in 
order to persuade them to demolish that house 
which Herod the tetrarch had built there, and 
which had the figures of living creatures in it, 
although our laws have forbidden us to make any 
such figures; and I desired that they would give 
me leave so to do immediately. But for a good 
while Capellus and the principal men belonging 
to the cit)^ would not give us leave, but were at 
length entirely overcome by us and were induced 
to be of our opinion. 

So Jesus the son of Sapphias, one of those, whom 
we have already mentioned as the leader of a 
seditious tumult ot viarhiers and poor people, pre- 
vented us, and took with him certain Galileans, 
and set the entire palace on fire, and thought he 
should get a great deal of money thereby, because 
he saw some of the roofs gilt with gold. They 
also plundered a great deal of the furniture, which 
was done without our approbation ; for, after we 



JOSEPHUS. 199 

had discoursed with Capellus and the principal 
men of the city, we departed from Bethmaus and 
went into the Upper Galilee. But Jesus and his 
party slew all the Greeks that were inhabitants of 
Tiberias and as many others as were their enemies 
before the war began. 

A few days afterwards there was a great clamor 
against Josephus, when he writes : 

And it was Jesus the son of Sapphias who prin- 
cipally set them on. He was ruler in Tiberias, a 
wicked man and naturally disposed to make dis- 
turbance in matters of consequence; a seditious 
person he was indeed, and an innovator beyond 
everybody else. He then took the laws of Moses 
into his own hands and came into the midst of the 
people and said : '* O, my fellow citizens, if you are 
not disposed to hate Josephus on your own account, 
have regard, however, to these laws of your coun- 
try, which your commander-in-chief is going to 
betray; hate him, therefore, on both these ac- 
counts and bring the man who has acted thus in- 
solently to his deserved punishment." 

Some time after this, at a feast, Jesus asked 
Josephus a question that is inconsistent with the 
charge that he (Jesus) had burned Herod's palace. 
Josephus writes that — 

Jesus, who was the ruler, asked : " What became 
of the vessels that were taken out of the king's 
palace when it was burned?" 

When Paul was first placed under arrest in 
Jerusalem, the Roman officer having him in 
charge — and who was probably a Greek, as he 
was not a Roman citizen by birth — first asked 



200 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Paul if he could speak Greek, and then asked 
him the following question : 

Art not thou that Egyptian, which before these 
days madest an uproar, and leddest out into the 
wilderness four thousand men that were mur- 
derers? (Acts xxi, 38.) 

Nothing in the New Testament justifies such a 
question, but it will be seen that, after the ac- 
counts just quoted from Josephus, it was a per- 
fectly natural one. The question indicates a 
knowledge of both the Egyptian leading the men 
into the wilderness and the murder of the Greeks 
in Tiberias. Paul had necessarily been exalting 
Jesus and relating his career and that name of 
Jesus and that career suggested the above ques- 
tion. 

The uproar that Paul had raised was similar to 
the effect produced by Christ at his crucifixion 
and he was proclaiming the same sentiments. 
Their positions were ver 5^ similar, but this similar- 
ity added to Paul's account of Jesus Christ brought 
to the mind of that officer no remembrance of him 
as described in the New Testament, but it did 
bring to his mind the Egyptian described by 
Josephus, which he apparently also blends with 
Jesus of Tiberias. 

The Egyptian resorted to the Mount of Olives 
and asserted that at his command the walls of 
Jerusalem would fall down. 

Christ also frequented the Mount of Olives and 
from there said : 



JOSEPHUS. 20 1 

There shall not be left one stone upon another 
that shall not be thrown down. (Mark xiii, 2, 3.) 

Each also had a following into the wilderness, 
the whole being a similarity so great as to make 
it improbable that they were two different indi- 
viduals. Either the gospel-writers, in collecting 
the traditional accounts of Christ, attributed to 
him some of the acts of this Egyptian or else the 
Egyptian was Christ, but erroneously located by 
Josephus in the procuratorship of Felix, with the 
number of his followers exaggerated. 

Although Paul was a" Hebrew of the Hebrews," 
the Greco-Roman officer asked him if he was not 
that Egyptian, which shows that citizens of other 
countries could still mistake Jews for Egyptians. 
The New Testament brings in a very improbable 
story of Jesus having been taken to Egypt in in- 
fancy in order — 

That it might be fulfilled which was spoken of 
the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt 
have I called my Son. (Matt, ii, 15.) 

According to that there was some well-known 
prophecy that made it desirable to connect Jesus 
with Egypt and this pretense would naturally be 
pointed out by his followers. In this way he 
might have become known to Josephus as an 
Egyptian, 



CHAPTER X. 

JOSEPHUS AND JESUS OF TIBERIAS. 



JOSEPHUS records other adventures of Jesus of 
Tiberias in Jewish Wars, Book iii, Chap. 9. 
He gives the name of his father as somewhat dif- 
ferent (Saphat)/ but the account shows that he 
was the same man Jesus, before referred to, who 
was a leader of mariners and poor people. He 
w^as not at the time a ruler in Tiberias, but was a 
man possessing sufficient popularity to be a trouble 
to the authorities. He brought misfortune upon 
the city, when it was besieged, by making an un- 
authorized sally and capturing the horses of Va- 
lerian and four or five others who were with that 



^ Prof. Ellas Colbert, in commenting on this name states 
that— 

The Hebrew original of the name is "Shaphat," the 
consonants of which are iDs's, read from right to left. It 
occurs in Numbers xiii, 5; First Chronicles iii, 22, and 
V, 12; also First Kings xix, 16. The SH was changed 
into S in the Septuagint translation, as the Greek alphabet 
has no equivalent for SH. The same change was made 
in many other words, for instance Shimeon to Simon, 
Shemshon to Samson, Sholomon to Solomon, Shamael to 
Samuel. The third consonant of the word Shaphat is very 
similar in shape to the Hebrew d, which has the sound of 
S, and it was easy in copying with a pen to mistake one 
for the other. A very little running of the pen in the 
upper part of the T (Teth) would cause it to appear as a 
continuous line and be read for S (Samech) . 



JOSEPHUS AND JESUS OF TIBERIAS. 203 

officer, the city at the time being quite in the 
power of the Romans. The authorities were 
obliged to repudiate this act of Jesus, who then 
went to Taricheae, the principal city of Genne- 
sareth. 

But his presence there was equally a source of 
misfortune, for his force was large enough to draw 
the Romans after him. The city would have been 
taken under any circumstances, but its capture 
was hastened by the opposition of the citizens to 
its evidently hopeless defense. Jesus throughout 
is shown to have been enterprising and belligerent 
and seemingly in command. Josephus states 
that— 

As the Romans were building a wall about their 
camp, Jesus and his party were neither affrighted 
at their numbers, nor at the good order they were 
in, but made a sally upon them ; and at the very 
first onset the builders of the wall were dispersed, 
and these pulled what little they had before built 
to pieces; but, as soon as they saw the armed men 
getting together and before they had suffered any- 
thing themselves, they retired to their own men. 
But then the Romans pursued them and drove 
them into their ships, where they launched out as 
far as might give them the opportunity to reach 
the Romans with what they threw at them, and 
then cast anchor, and brought their ships close, as 
in line of battle, and thence fought the enemy 
from the sea, who were themselves on land. 

There was a terrible sedition in the city, for 
" those to whom the city belonged were not dis- 
posed to fight." 

Titus took advantage of this to enter the city. 



204 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Whereupon, those that were upon the walls 
were seized with terror at the boldness of the at- 
tempt, nor durst any one venture to fight with 
him; so they left guarding the city; and some of 
those that were about Jesus fled over the country. 

These men were making a heroic stand for their 
country and fighting desperately almost against 
hope. Under such circumstances, this man, Jesus, 
would be almost worshiped in after years by large 
numbers of Jews, even though he was insubordi- 
nate and his ill-advised operation a useless waste 
of life. It is possible, also, for the Jewish super- 
stition to have become somewhat associated with 
his career. That superstition was composed far 
more of self-conceit than natural religion, and 
hence all public events were supposed to have 
been brought around by the Almighty with spe- 
cial reference to themselves, and consequent!}^ the 
leaders in those events were His chosen instru- 
ments, and therefore divine. 

This was twenty-five or thirty years after the 
crucifixion, but it was, also, fully as many years 
before there was any written life of Christ. As 
before stated, the nature of the disciples' belief 
did not admit of the thought of writing his his- 
tory. The events he predicted were to take place 
while those familiar with that life still lived, and 
when the growing church and failing predictions 
drew out a want for written records it would be 
his sayings that would be first wanted. Only those 
terrible predictions that so filled his credulous fol- 
lowers with fear would be first written. Not until 



JOSEPHUS AND JESUS OF TIBERIAS. 20$ 

the church had attained considerable power would 
there be awakened a curiosity to know the life of 
the man they worshiped. But when that time 
came those who were familiar with that life were 
all dead. His generation had passed away and 
the church was obliged to content itself with the 
meager traditional rumors of Jesus that then pre- 
vailed. 

A young man living in the time of this man, 
Jesus of Tiberias, would be an old man when the 
first life of Christ was written, and it is exceed- 
ingly probable that the rumored heroism of the 
one would become blended with the rumored 
miracles of the other. The Christian movement 
would be the gainer by it, as the fame of the two 
would be attached to Christ. It probably might 
be said of this second Jesus that " His fame went 
throughout all Syria." (Matt, iv, 24.) "He was 
a leader of mariners and poor people," which aptly 
describes the disciples of Christ, who were fisher- 
men and poor people about and upon that Sea of 
Galilee. They had intimate companions of the 
same name (Simon and John). There was a sim- 
ilar spectacle in Christ on board ship addressing 
the multitude on the shore (Mark iv, i) and Jesus 
of Tiberias and his followers confronting the Ro- 
mans on the shore, though the scene otherwise 
was greatly different. 

The Romans succeeded in destroying the ships 
at the close of this battle, whereby several thou- 
sand Jews were drowned. Josephus writes: 



206 THE SAFE SIDE. 

One might then see the lake all bloody and full 
of dead bodies, for not one of them escaped. And 
a terrible stink and a very sad sight there was, on 
the following days, over the country; for, as for 
the shores, they were full of shipwrecks and of 
dead bodies all swelled ; and, as the dead bodies 
were inflamed by the sun and putrefied, they cor- 
rupted the air, insomuch that the misery was not 
only the object of commiseration to the Jews, but 
to those that hated them and had been the authors 
of their misery. 

Among an ignorant population, where knowl- 
edge of public affairs is obtained only through oral 
testimony, all events unfavorable to their country 
become distorted and falsified into those of an op- 
posite nature. Such people remain in blissful ig- 
norance of their country's woes. They know of 
no defeats, for time or distance soon transforms 
all such into victories. The battle of Taricheae, 
therefore, no doubt in later years was remembered 
by the lower classes as a victory for the Jews. 
Their egotism, as well as ignorance, would insure 
this transformation. Jesus of Tiberias had been 
one of their own class and would naturally be re- 
vered and glorified by them as one of the greatest 
of lieroes. He would be represented to have been 
invincible and perhaps supernatural. This bat- 
tle would certainly be known as one of his greatest 
exploits, and it would be the Roman legions, 
rather than their countrymen, who were drowned 
in the sea. 

The noncombatant principles of the Essenes 
would not prevent their secret admiration for this 



JOSEPHUS AND JESUS OF TIBERIAS. 20/ 

man. People cannot suppress their natural feel- 
ings through vows and resolutions. It has been 
seen in our times how the Quakers manage to give 
voluntary aid to their country in time of war, in 
spite of their professed opposing sentiment. The 
Essenes would glory in this man, Jesus, even 
though affecting to despise the acts that gave him 
his renown. These several circumstances suggest 
the hypothesis that the incident related of Christ 
in Matt, viii, 28 to 34, Mark v, 2 to 17, and Luke 
viii, 27 to 37, of the legion of devils being sent into 
2,000 hogs and drowned in the sea, was an alle- 
goric reference by the Essenes to the disastrous 
event just quoted. It is in this style that such 
people, with such views, would praise the man 
while condemning the act. They believed some 
of their own numbers possessed supernatural 
powers and would readily attach such powers to 
Jesus. 

The statement in the gospels is a preposterous 
one to make without explanation. Two thousand 
hogs would be more than could be found together 
in the open country, even now in our great pork- 
producing country, and their swollen, decaying 
bodies would afterwards be a most serious matter. 
The fact that such a number was represented to 
be in the possession of a people who did not eat 
pork is strong evidence that the account is alle- 
gorical. The word legion is used in an unnatural 
manner in the gospels, but with this explanation 
its meaning is clear : The devils drowned in the 



208 THE SAFE SIDE. 

sea, whose name is legion, were the Roman le- 
gions, who were represented to have been sent into 
animals most abominated by Jews. The two pos- 
sessed of these legions who could not be bound 
were Vespasian and Titus, who could not be de- 
feated. Mark and Luke represent but one man 
as being so possessed, while Matthew states there 
were two. This discrepancy is favorable to this 
hypothesis, for Titus was both second in command 
and son of the commander, and, when the narra- 
tive was written, both father and son had been 
emperors. Such a close connection would natu- 
rally beget an indiscriminate reference to Vespa- 
sian or Vespasian and Titus as the commanders. 
All the gospel accounts represent that Jesus was 
requested to "depart out of their coast," an un- 
natural request to make under the circumstances 
as represented, Josephus states that the same 
request was made to this man, Jesus, many of the 
citizens being very angry that those who owned 
the city should be subjected to such dangers by 
men who had no interest in the place. The ab- 
sence of any mention of this incident in the Fourth 
Gospel indicates some known objection to it when 
that gospel was written. 

The city of Tiberias was built by Herod when 
Tiberius was Emperor, and, consequently, in the 
lifetime of Christ; and, as Joseph was a carpenter, 
it may account for his presence in that part of the 
country. Capernaum is located on ancient maps 
as being some two or three miles from Tiberias. 



JOSEPHUS AND JESUS OF TIBERIAS. 209 

The Sea of Galilee, or Lake Gennesareth, or Sea 
of Tiberias is only about i^}4 miles long by about 
6}4 miles wide. 

The foregoing quotations from Josephus were 
taken from Rev. Wm. Whiston's translations of 
the works of Josephus, which is an old and stand- 
ard work ; but there is a late translation of The 
Life of Josephus and of Jewish Wars by Rev. 
Robert Traill, in both of which the name of this 
man Jesus is given as Joshua. Those names are 
equivalent in Hebrew and mean Jehoimh is Salva- 
tion^ and if both those writers had been translating 
from that language there would have been some 
excuse for this difference, provided each should at 
all times use their own translation of the word 
Jesus wherever found. But Hebrew was a dead 
language in the time of Christ and the question 
of the translation of that name had long passed. 
Plainly, this man Jesus of Tiberias had the same 
name as Jesus of Nazareth and whatever reason 
can be given for designating one as Joshua applies 
equally to the other. 

This change of that name was an extreme 
measure on the part of Mr. Traill and shows that 
he recognized at least the possibility of traditions 
of this man Jesus having been blended with those 
of Christ and he sought to hide that fact by a 
falsification. He translated only those works of 
Josephus in which that man was mentioned, and 
it is not improbable that he deemed that alteration 
of sufficient importance to justify his labors. It 
14 



2IO THE SAFE SIDE. 

will be noticed that this alteration is in the na- 
ture of a suppression ; knowledge of an important 
fact is intentionally, deceptively suppressed in 
support of that which is so vehemently designated 
as ''the Truth." 

For more than seventeen hundred years Chris- 
tian writers have, from time to time, in this man- 
ner cleared away some item of evidence in conflict 
with their system. Sometimes it has been a slight 
alteration, sometimes a slight interpolation, and 
at other times a suppression, but most commonly 
direct misrepresentations. That any such items 
have reached us at all was because of former igno- 
rance of the exposures that time would develop. 
Their superstition, too, has for many centuries 
prevented any material alteration in the very place 
where they could have done most to sustain their 
doctrines. In their veneration for the Bible so 
many eyes were turned upon it that from very 
necessity it has come down to us, through later 
centuries, in all the nakedness of truth, not of its 
statements, but of the superstition, credulity, dis- 
agreement, and ignorance of its writers, 

Josephus relates an incident of a deception 
practiced upon a highly respected and virtuous 
lady by some priests in a temple. The story is so 
similar to the New Testament account of the im- 
maculate conception that it is commented upon by 
Christian writers. It seems to be the rule with 
all those writers to assume that Josephus knew of 
the Christian movement; they only differ in their 



JOSEPHUS AND JESUS OF TIBERIAS. 211 

theories as to why his works give no evidence of 
that knowledge. He ought to have known of it 
if it were true ; therefore, they assert that he did 
know of it. One theory given in regard to the 
event referred to is that Josephus originated the 
story himself in order to throw discredit upon the 
gospel account of the Virgin Mary by robbing it 
of its originality and implying that it was made 
up out of that incident. 

Immediately before mentioning Pilate as pro- 
curator, and consequently in the lifetime of 
Christ, Josephus, both in his Jewish Wars and 
Antiquities of the Jews, gives an account of Judas 
a Galilean who led a revolt ; and in each of those 
histories association of ideas leads him to imme- 
diately give an account of three religious sects of 
Jews, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, with 
the latter of which he in a measure connects 
Judas. The account is given the most fully in 
Jewish Wars, ii, 8. Rewrites: 

A certain Galilean, whose name was Judas, pre- 
vailed with his countrymen to revolt, and said 
they were cowards if they would endure to pay 
tax to the Romans and would, after God, submit 
to mortal man as their lords. This man was a 
teacher of a peculiar sect of his own and was not 
at all like the rest of those their leaders. 

He then at great length narrates the manners 
and customs of the Essenes, who had all the tenets 
of the Christians and some that the latter did not 
adopt. He represents them in a favorable light 
and clearly shows that Christian ideas did not 



2 12 THE SAFE SIDE. 

originate with Christians. He states that the 

Essenes taught that the soul was immortal, which 

was not believed by the Sadducees and not fully 

by the Pharisees. ' 

The Essenes rejected pleasure as an evil. They 
despised riches and held all property in common. 
They neglected wedlock. Their piety towards 
God was very extraordinary ; they said grace be- 
fore eating and afterwards praised God for having 
bestowed their food upon them. They were emi- 
nent for fidelity and were the ministers of peace, 
and whatsoever they say is firmer than an oath, 
but swearing is avoided by them. They had 
prayers before sunrise and after the fifth hour they 
assembled together and after clothing themselves 
in white veils bathed in cold water. They kept 
very quiet and their perpetual sobriety was re- 
markable. They were stricter than any other 
Jews in resting from their labors on the seventh 
day. They would assist those who were in want 
and show mercy and bestow food upon those who 
were in distress. There were also those among 
them who undertook to foretell things to come, etc. 

He also states in Antiquities of the Jews that — 

The doctrine of the Essenes is this, that all 
things are the best ascribed to God. They teach 
the immortality of souls, and esteem that the re- 
wards of righteousness are to be earnestly striven 
for. * * * It also deserves our admiration how 
much they exceed all other men that addict them- 
selves to virtue. 

Here we see existed, in the little country where 

Christianity originated, a sect full of naturally 

' It is asserted by some that the Old Testament does not 
teach the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. This 
at least shows that there was a difference of opinion about 
it among the keepers and authors of that work.- 



JOSEPHUS AND JESUS OF TIBERIAS. .213 

religious impulses and having sentiments and 
practices that Christians claim were first made 
known to the world through Christ. Where Jo- 
sephus shows that the seed had been abundant, 
Christians assert that the crop was supernatural 
and bore a variety that had never existed before. 
Even the Essenes did not originate their religious 
tenets, for Josephus states that " These men lived 
the same kind of lives as do those whom the Greek 
call Pythagoreans." The ethics of Christianity 
w^as consequently venerable with age in the time of 
Christ, for Pythagoras lived about 560 years before 
that time, or some 350 years before the sect of 
Essenes was founded. The only apparent differ- 
ence between the Christians and Essenes is that 
the former did not adopt all the tenets of the lat- 
ter. It is probable, however, that this difference 
was but the growth of time through the gradual 
neglect and final abandonment of first one and 
then another of the too rigid practices of the Es- 
senes. We know, for instance, that celibacy and 
communism were practiced by the eai'ly Christians. 
The description of John the Baptist accords well 
with that of the Essenes and he may have belonged 
to that body of Jews. His proselytes at least were 
evidently drawn largely from theni. Renan in 
his Life of Jesus states that " The Essenes or 
Therapeutes were established near the country of 
John, upon the eastern borders of the Dead Sea." 
John and his disciples were plainly familiar with 
the sentiments of that order. The New Testa- 



2 14 THE SAFE SIDE. 

ment has much in it of the Pharisees and Sad- 
ducees, but it contains not one word that indicates 
a knowledge of the Essenes. This omission or 
elimination is a virtual acknowledgment that the 
latter preceded Christ in sentiments attributed to 
him. It is the church's proclamation of its jeal- 
ousy of that body. 

Josephus does not state that Judas was an Es- 
sene, but association of ideas which he twice ex- 
hibits indicates that he was closely allied to them, 
though a leader of a sect of his own. He locates 
his time at about the beginning of the procurator- 
ship of Pilate, but he closes the account by stating 
that " It was in Gessius Florus's time that the na- 
tion began to go mad with this distemper" (refer- 
ring to the sentiments taught by Judas and others). 
It was the tyranny of Florus, more particularly, 
that drove the Jews into rebellion against the 
Romans. 

Judas's opposition to paying taxes seemed to be 
based upon ignorance of his relations and duties 
to government, rather than upon a disposition to 
rebel against the Romans. An incident recorded 
in the synoptic gospels indicates that Jesus also 
opposed paying taxes. He was asked by Phari- 
sees and Herodians, sent to " catch him in his 
words" (Mark xii, 13), or "spies which should 
feign" friendship (Luke xx, 20), if it was lawful 
to give tribute to Cesar. 

This question, under such circumstances, shows 
that they had reason to expect that he would con- 



JOSEPHUS AND JESUS OF TIBERIAS. 215 

vict himself of resistance to the law in that respect. 
His answer, also, is confirmatory of this, for he 
gives an ingenious reply that seems to be favor- 
able, but which does not meet the question. The 
authorities could not object to his sentiments as 
expressed in his answer, while on the other hand 
his companions could not charge him with hav- 
ing weakened in the presence of those officers. 
After being told that the image and superscrip- 
tion on the penny were Cesar's, he gave that oft- 
quoted reply, " Render to Cesar the things that are 
Cesar's, and to God the things that are God's. " 
However correct this sentiment may be, the infer- 
ence has no connection with the question, for coin 
with Cesar's image and superscription upon it 
would not necessarily belong to Cesar. Refusal 
to pay taxes would naturally be made in the be- 
lief that the authorities had no right to levy them, 
and the answer of Jesus neither affirms nor denies 
that right. 

In Matthew xvii, 25, 26, 27, Jesus is represented 
as hesitating and but tolerating payment of tribute 
and though it is stated to have been paid by a 
miracle it was made to appear to have been done 
because it was a trifle unworthy of dispute. 

In one place Josephus writes of Judas as a 
Gaulonite, a citizen of a town in Galilee, and he 
is referred toby that title by Gibbon. He is also 
mentioned in Acts v, 37. Here, again, association 
of ideas connects him with the Christian move- 
ment ; otherwise there was no apparent reason why 



2l6 THE SAFE SIDE. 

the lawyer Gamaliel should have singled out Judas 
and Theudas from the many bands of men in Judea 
in those troublesome times. Life was cheap in 
those days. There were too may who perished to 
make that a reason for naming them. Peter and 
the apostles were being tried for persisting to ad-, 
vocate the doctrines of Jesus, and this brought to 
the mind of Gamaliel two leaders of similar bands, 
Judas and Theudas. The latter was one who was 
characterized as a false prophet, who said that if 
the people " would follow him to the river Jordan 
he would divide the water." 

Josephus also writes of Theudas in the same 
paragraph with Judas and, as shown, is also re- 
minded by them of a body similar to the Chris- 
tians. He gives this account in that part of his 
histories where Christ should have been mentioned 
if he had known of him. The sentiments, loca- 
tion, repeated association of ideas, and time of this 
man Judas, therefore, closely connect him with 
Christ. The odium the disciples caused to be at- 
tached to that nam.e may have had its origin in 
rivalry and jealousy. The circumstances suggest 
the possibility of his having led a wing of the fol- 
lowers of John the Baptist. It is worthy of note 
that among the lost gospels there was one by 
Judas Iscariot, which is certainly inconsistent with 
the New Testament account of his treachery. 

But Josephus relates an incident that indicates 
that he did hear an undefined fragment of the tra- 
ditional rumors of Christ. It is, for reasons be- 



JOSEPHUS AND JESUS OF TIBERIAS. 2 1/ 

fore mentioned, attached to the siege of Jerusalem, 

about thirty-five years later. It is in Jewish 

Wars, Book iv. Chap. 5 : 

But, what was still more terrible, there was one 
Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a hus- 
bandman, who, four years before the war began 
and at a time when the city was in very great 
peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon 
it is our custom to make tabernacles to God in the 
temple and began on a sudden to cry aloud, " A 
voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice 
from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem 
and holy houses, a voice against the bridegrooms 
and the brides, a voice against the whole people." 
This was his cry as he went about by day and by 
night in all the lanes of the city. However, certain 
of the most eminent among the populace had great 
indignation at this dire cry of his and took up the 
man and gave him a great number of severe 
stripes: yet did not he either say anything for 
himself or anything peculiar to those that chas- 
tised him, but still went on with the same words 
which he cried before. Thereupon, our rulers, 
supposing, as the case proved to be, that this was 
a sort of divine fury in the man, brought him to 
the Roman procurator, when he was whipped 
until his bones were laid bare; yet did not he 
make any supplication for himself, nor shed any 
tears, but, turning his voice to the most lamen- 
table tone possible, at every stroke of the whip 
his answer was " Wo, wo to Jerusalem. " And when 
Albinus (for he was then our procurator) asked 
him " who he was, and whence he came, and why 
he uttered such words," he made no manner of re- 
ply to what he said, but still did not leave off his 
melancholy ditty till Albinus took him to be a 
madman and dismissed him. Now, during all the 
time that passed before the war began, this man 
did not go near anv of the citizens, nor was seen 



2l8 THE SAFE SIDE. 

b)' them while he said so ; but he every day uttered 
these lamentable words, as if it were his premedi- 
tated vow, "Wo, wo to Jerusalem." Nor did he 
give ill words to any of those that beat him every 
day, nor good words to those that gave him food; 
but this was his reply to all men, and indeed no 
other than a melancholy presage of what was to 
come. This cry of his was the loudest at the 
festivals, and he continued this ditty for seven 
years and five months without growing hoarse or 
being tired therewith, until the very time that he 
saw his presage in earnest fulfillment in our siege, 
when it ceased, for as he was going round upon 
the wall he cried out with his utmost force, "Wo, 
wo to the city again, and to the people, and to the 
holy houses." And just as he added at the last 
"Wo, wo to myself also," there came a stone out 
of one of the engines and smote him and killed 
him immediately., and as he was^uttering the very 
same passage he gave up the ghost. 

The siege and capture of Jerusalem would natu- 
rally excite the superstition of that superstitious 
people and would enable the disciples of Jesus to 
claim it as a result of his persecution. It evi- 
dently gave an impetus to the Christian move- 
ment, for it is only after that time that there be- 
gan to be written accounts of it. Stories of Jesus 
would be revived, and, as he was then generally 
unknown, they would become distorted, as all 
rumors do, and naturally some of them would be- 
come connected with the time of the siege. All 
the expressions this man is represented as using 
are about the same as some attributed to Christ, 
particularly the one he was said to use the most, 
"Wo, wo to Jerusalem, to the people, and to the 



JOSEPHUS AND JESUS OF TIBERIAS. 219 

holy houses." A figure of bridegrooms and brides 
is used a few times in the gospels, and his refusal 
to answer questions when before the authorities is 
much like the representations of Christ under the 
same circumstances. He made his appearance 
in Jerusalem at the passover, the same as Christ. 
The gospels also state that Christ was scourged, 
and finally the same expression is used at his 
death, " He gave up the ghost." 

There are enough coincidents in this account to 
make it very probable that it is a vague, distorted 
fragment of a direct superstitious rumor of Jesus 
that reached the ear of Josephus. Its unimpor- 
tance is consistent with his omission of any account 
satisfactory to Christians and consistent with his 
absolute ignorance of the existence of Christ. 

The capture of Jerusalem, which event occurred 
but a short time before Josephus wrote his works, 
was the last of four simple events to which Chris- 
tianity owes its origin. The accounts of Jesus 
having prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem 
and the temple were written after the city was 
captured and the temple destroyed. Nevertheless 
that Jesus made such a prophecy is probable, be- 
cause it was, under the circumstances, natural. 
Any man claiming supernatural powers would 
scarcely fail, when so situated, to predict the de- 
struction of homes and all that was cherished by 
the people who were about to torture him. 

Furthermore, a man of ordinary intelligence 
could readily foresee that any occupation of Jeru- 



220 THE SAFE SIDE. 

salem by the multitude that accompanied him or 
by any body of Jews in the rebellion that was 
then brewing would be but temporary. It required 
but slight foresight to see that such an occupation 
would soon bring the Romans — 

Who would cast a trench about the city and 
compass it around, and keep it in on every side, 
and who would lay it even with the ground. 

When, therefore, the city was taken some 
twent5^-five to thirty-five years later and this pos- 
sible prediction /^r/'/y, but not wholly, fulfilled, it 
would naturally have great effect upon the in- 
tensely superstitious followers of Jesus and be a 
great lever in their hands to act upon the super- 
stition of others. Jerusalem was simply being re- 
stored to the government that was in authority in 
the time of Christ; but they were God's chosen 
people and as their temple was destroyed some- 
thing as portentous as the end of the world ought 
to follow. 

John the Baptist had been actuated in his 
movement by this same idea, and in doing so he 
unconsciously made the first step in erecting the 
Christian superstition by proclaiming the coming 
of the Messiah. The second step was in Jesus 
claiming to be that Messiah and was a result of 
the first. The third step was in the powerful ef- 
fect made upon the minds of his simple disciples 
by the disappearance of his body or his possible 
resuscitation. The fourth and last step was this 



JOSEPHUS AND JESUS OF TIBERIAS. 22 1 

seeming fulfillment of his prophecy by the capture 
of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple. 

In this simple succession of events lies the ori- 
gin of Christianity as a distinct sect. 

Their articles of faith, as now understood, were 
mostly to be developed in the future. Time en- 
forced a renunciation of certain impracticable 
doctrines, and future difficulties enforced the 
adoption of others, the whole forming a combina- 
tion unknown to the primitive Christians. Not 
that that combination was composed of parts orig- 
inal with the Christians in later times, for it was 
not. One of their greatest future difficulties, they 
met with their worst doctrine, which they bor- 
rowed from mythology. That combination and 
their ideas of Christ are all that is original in the 
system. The reader is referred to a late work — 
Evolution and Christianity, by J. F. Yorke — for 
an account of the many parallels between the 
Christian religion and others that preceded it. 

When Josephus wrote, that movement needed 
to be somewhat sanctified by time; it required a little 
forgetfulness to rob it of much that even then was 
commonplace and coarse. Time had not done this 
while Josephus yet lived ; the structure had not 
sufficiently progressed, and, hence, he only heard 
a little of the coarse material upon which Chris- 
tianity was founded. In his loud silence alone 
there is sufficient evidence of the untruthfulness 
of the accounts of Jesus Christ as given in the 
New Testament. 



CHAPTER XI. 

ST. PAUL. 



MORE is known of St. Paul than of any other 
character mentioned in the New Testament. 
The circumstances that led to his greater renown 
grew out of the fact that he knew not more, but 
less of Christ than did any of the other apostles. 
He had not, like them, been with Christ and be- 
come thoroughly imbued with his sentiments, and 
was therefore freer to act upon ideas of his own 
when occasion required. Except for those more 
practicable ideas of his we should never have 
heard either of him or of Christ. Paul's religious 
nature was powerfully acted upon by what he re- 
garded as his supernatural conversion. He de- 
scribes what is believed by some to have been a 
sunstroke which may have affected his mind. 
The mind and health are often seriously impaired 
in such cases, and his absence in Arabia (Gal. i, 
17) immediately after may have been but his 
slow recovery. That he considered that event to 
be of great importance is manifest from his fre- 
quent allusions to it and by the position he as- 
sumed towards the other apostles because of it. 
An account of it is given in full three times in the 
Acts of the Apostles, and his references to it were 



ST. PAUL. • 223 

usually with a view of asserting the divine author- 
ity of his doctrines. Evidently he would not ad- 
mit any authority over him by the other apostjes, 
even when in a united body. He said he was " An 
apostle not of men, neither of man, but by Jesus 
Christ and God the Father, who raised him from 
the dead." 

In the first and second chapters of his Epistle to 
the Galatians he strongly proclaims his independ- 
ence of the other apostles and implies superiority 
over them. He said if any other man or an angel 
from heaven preached any other doctrine to them 
than that which he had preached " Let him be ac- 
cursed." He indirectly states in the 10th verse 
that God speaks to them through him and that the 
gospel which he preached was not taught to him 
by man. He then goes on to show his authority 
for this statement by calling attention to his mi- 
raculous conversion, which he assumes they had 
heard of, an assumption that shows his own high 
ideas of its importance. 

He then states that, when it pleased God to call 
him to reveal His Son, he did not cojifer with, any- 
body and especially that he did not go to Jerusalem 
nor to the apostles before him. Not until three 
years after did he visit Jerusalem and then he saw 
of the apostles only Peter and James. He after- 
ward went into the region of Syria and Cilicia and 
was unknown by face to his fellow churchmen in 
Judea. He did not go to Jerusalem again until 
fourteen years after and asserts that he then went 



224 • THE SAFE SIDE. 

up by revelation^ not to consult, but to communicate 
unto them that gospel which he preached among 
the Gentiles ; that is to say, he had been sent by 
the Almighty to instruct those apostles who had 
been taught by Christ. 

That visit discloses the existence of jealousy 
and rivalry between them. He writes of false 
brethren brought in ^' to spy out our liberty which we 
have in Christ Jesus.'' The apostles were plainly 
angry with him for his pretensions and his inde- 
pendent promulgation of sentiments that were ex- 
clusively his own. Questions as to superior au- 
thority must have been raised, for he states that 
he did not give place by subjection to them, ''No, 
not for an hour.'' The strength of this expression 
indicates the acrimony of the contest that drew it 
out. He states that in conference they added 
nothing to him. In his opinion he was there to 
teach rather than to be taught, and he learned 
nothing from them. He writes that James, Ce- 
phas (Peter), and John ''seemed to be pillars," as 
though he had never known that, and implies that 
some concession was made to him when they 
perceived the grace that was given him and they 
gave him and Barnabas " the right hand of fel- 
lowship. " 

But this seeming restoration of harmony is not 
sustained in the subsequent verses, for there was 
continued contention about the great question of 
preaching to the Gentiles. 

According to Acts of the Apostles the authority 



ST. PAUL. 225 

for preaching to others than Jews was derived 
through Peter's vision, accompanying Cornelius's 
miraculous conversion. This goes to show that 
the one or two sentences inserted in the gospels 
were interpolations (Matt, xxviii, 19; Mark xiii, 
10, and xvi, 15). Peter and the apostles did not 
so understand it, and, as against those slight and 
timid interpolations, the gospels record repeated 
instances where Christ exhibited most intolerant 
aversion to Gentiles. He compares them to dogs 
and imequivocally asserted that he was sent for 
the lost sheep of Israel only. (Matt, xv, 24-26.) 
But even the account of Peter's vision and his 
reference to it are inconsistent with later accounts 
and must also have been an interpolation, for now, 
after many years, the question of admitting Gen- 
tiles causes an angry contention and is plainly op- 
posed by Peter. It was the cause of a delegation 
from Antioch to Jerusalem and a second delegation 
from Jerusalem to Antioch, the two conferences 
ending in a division into two parties, as they were 
unable to agree. Paul says (Galatians ii) : 

11 But when Peter was come to Antioch, I 
withstood him to the face, because he was to be 
blamed. 

12 For before that certain came from James, he 
did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were 
come, he withdrew, and separated himself, fearing 
them which were of the circumcision. 

13 And the other Jews dissembled likewise with 
him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried 
away with their dissimulation. 

It will be seen by this that Peter was not willing 
15 



226 THE SAFE SIDE. 

to eat with Christians as now understood in the 
system, even though those lines have been doctored 
with intent to hide that fact. Paul and Barnabas 
had not only failed to induce the apostles at Jeru- 
salem to assent to the admission of Gentiles, but 
on the contrary they had been followed to Antioch 
by Peter to counteract Paul's efforts and he (Peter) 
succeeded in inducing Barnabas to yield to the 
authority of the Jerusalem council. Paul's as- 
sumption that " the gospel of the uncircumcised 
was committed unto him, as the gospel of the cir- 
cumcised was to Peter," is a demand that his 
supernatural pretensions be admitted the same as 
Peter's. It is also equivalent to an admission on 
his part that he knew nothing of the pretended 
story of Peter's vision. 

His charge that Peter would not eat with Gen- 
tiles when Jews were present was evidently put 
forth to make Peter unpopular with the former; 
otherwise it was trivial and its publication inju- 
rious to their cause. 

This visit of Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem and 
the evident feeling upon the Gentile and circum- 
cision questions are also given in Acts xv. The 
return delegation (which was imnecessary if they 
were in harmony) is mentioned, but Peter's name 
is not given as a delegate. Paul's account dis- 
closes enough to show that there were a spirited 
contest and much ill feeling, in which Paul's 
friend and companion was won over to the other 
side, and they separated from that time. 



ST. PAUL. 227 

The reason for this separation is given in Acts 
as being because Barnabas wanted Mark to go 
with them, which Paul refused because he had left 
them on a former occasion. This is not the whole 
truth. Mark's leaving them at the time referred 
to was a serious offense to Paul, because he did so 
to side with the Jerusalem party and immediately 
went to that city. (Acts xiii, 13.) The offense 
consisted in the motive for leaving them, and not 
in the act itself, and without change of views 
would continue to be as offensive to Barnabas as 
to Paul. But Barnabas had changed sides upon 
the Gentile question and was therefore in har- 
mony with Mark, while Paul, with his views, 
could preach with neither. 

In Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians (chapter iii) 
he also asserts his divine ordination and that he 
was exclusively sent to the Gentiles. He says : 

2 If ye have heard of the dispensation of the 
grace of God which is given me to you-ward: 

3 How that by revelation he made known imto 
me the mystery, as I wrote afore in few words ; 

4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand 
my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, 

5 Which in other ages was not made known 
unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto 
his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit ; 

6 That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and 
of the same body, and partakers of his promise in 
Christ by the gospel : 

7 Whereof I was made a minister, according to 
the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the 
effectual working of his power. 

8 Unto me, who am less than the least of all 



228 THE SAFE SIDE. 

saints, is this grace given, that I should preach 
among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of 
Christ. 

The modesty expressed in this last verse was 
not characteristic of Paul. It is in sharp contrast 
with the spirit exhibited in his Epistles to the 
Galatians (i, 8,) where he hurls curses upon any 
who preach any other gospel than that which he 
had preached, even though it were an angel from 
heaven. 

Paul has much to say in his Epistle to the Ro- 
mans upon this question of the admission of the 
Gentiles. He seems to argue upon that point in 
nearly every chapter. He twice alludes to " my 
gospel" and also to his having been especially ap- 
pointed an apostle to the Gentiles (xi, 13; xv, 16, 
18). He not only asserted his broad claim to di- 
vine [inspiration and to his independence of the 
other apostles, but he acted it in his intercourse 
with others. He had a strong will and was com- 
bative and evidently met with much opposition 
and contention. His epistles show that he would 
not tolerate any difference with others in his opin- 
ions. He seemed to look upon himself as quite 
the head and chief authority of the church, and, 
judging from the New Testament, he was. Most 
of that book, after the gospels, is devoted to his 
acts. Nearly all the epistles are by him and two- 
thirds of Acts of the Apostles are taken up with 
accounts of him. 

This, however, does not by any means prove 



ST. PAUL. 229 

Paul intellectually superior to any of the others, 
but it does prove that his doctrines were more ac- 
ceptable to the church some two hundred years 
later than were those of the other apostles. He 
and his followers were a party by themselves, and 
when in time the church leaders were incorporat- 
ing those early writings into the New Testament 
they would have to wholly reject Paul or wholly 
accept him and reject the others. They made the 
latter choice, being forced to do so by Paul's lib- 
eral views upon the admission of Gentiles. 

There is no room to question the fact that Jesus 
first, and Peter and all the apostles except Paul 
afterwards, never consented to the admission into 
the church of any but circumcised Jews. The few 
interpolated passages to the contrary are abun- 
dantly contradicted, as shown by other accounts, 
which undoubtedly were too well known to be 
eliminated from the gospels. The other apostles 
were safe in Jerusalem at a time when the Jews 
were exceedingly incensed against Paul and v/ould 
have killed him but for the Roman officers. This 
shows that it was not belief in Christ that enraged 
the Jews. It is plain that his adherents were tol- 
erated there as part of themselves. Such preach- 
ing as the Apostles had done in other countries 
had only been to Jews in those countries. This is 
not only frequently disclosed, but it is asserted in 
one instance by Peter, in Acts xi, 19. He said: 

Now they which were scattered abroad upon the 
persecution that arose about Stephen traveled as 



2 30 THE SAFE SIDE. 

far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preach- 
ing the word to none but unto the Jews only. 

But Paul, by preaching to the Gentiles and, 
above all, by holding any doctrine that admitted 
the uncircumcised to an equality, was touching 
them (the Jews) in their most cherished article of 
conceit, and, in so doing, he would be looked upon 
by them as an apostate and traitor. That the 
Jews had this feeling was well known to his fellow 
Christians before he went to Jerusalem, for they 
warned him not to go, though the}^ knew the other 
apostles were there unmolested. The brethren in 
Jerusalem also understood the feeling to be against 
Paul exclusively, and promptly informed him of 
his danger on his arrival, stating, in substance, 
what was true, that he subverted the laws of 
Moses and taught that circumcision was no longer 
necessary. (Acts xxi, 21.) 

When Paul first called upon the brethren on this 
occasion he reported or boasted of what he had 
accomplished among the Gentiles, his particular 
field of operations (xxi, 19). The spirit of the 
brethren's reply was to the effect that sufficient 
success had attended preaching to the Jews, who 
zealously kept the laws of Moses, to deprive Paul 
of any excuse for preaching to a class whom the 
Almighty had excluded from Zion. They said : 

Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of 
Jews there are which believe; and they are all 
zealous of the law. 

In his address to the Jews, given in the next 



ST. PAUL. 231 

chapter, Paul was trying to justify his course by 
claiming that he had a divine command to go " far 
hence unto the Gentiles," but his mention of the 
latter gave immediate offense to them. Whatever 
doctrines a Jew might otherwise have, he must 
remain true to the exclusiveness of the Jews. The 
foundation of their superstition was that God cared 
only for them and any doctrine that admitted Gen- 
tiles to an equality amounted to an abnegation of 
their religion. 

These several circumstances all go to prove that 
admitting Gentiles and omitting some of the Jew- 
ish customs were the doctrines and acts of Paul 
exclusively. When, therefore, in those later 
times the church was wholly composed of Gen- 
tiles, they found that those doctrines of Peter and 
the other apostles excluded them all under any 
circumstances and had to be suppressed at all 
hazards. Those doctrines were too narrow for the 
wide field the church had then attained. 

But Peter was directly appointed by Christ. 
He was his chief disciple and the leader after the 
crucifixion, at a time when Paul was persecuting 
them, and hence there were far greater reasons 
why the church should accept him as authority 
wherever he differed with Paul. For these rea- 
sons it was impossible to wholly ignore him. It 
was indispensable that some of his writings be in- 
corporated in the New Testament. Such would 
naturally be the considerations of those compilers 
and the condition of that book indicates that such 



232 THE SAFE SIDE. 

was the case. Two short epistles of his are in- 
serted and some of his sayings and doings are re- 
corded in Acts, but the whole is shamefully small 
for the man who above all others should have been 
most favored by the church, provided it was act- 
uated by no other consideration than a wish to 
know the exact truth as to the sentiment of Jesus 
Christ. 

The limited amount of Peter's works admitted 
indicates how objectionable his sentiments must 
have been, for his suppressed gospel was the best 
known of any, and no doubt there were other of 
his w^ritings. The little that was admitted has 
not been so much doctored but that his Jewish ex- 
clusiveness can be detected. It is addressed to 
" The strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Ga- 
latia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia," but the 
contents show that he meant the Jews only, who 
would be strangers in those countries. He writes 
(I Peter ii, 9) : 

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priest- 
hood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye 
should shew forth the praises of him who hath 
called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 

In the 12th verse he writes " Having your con- 
versation honest among the Gentiles," showing 
that it was the Jews who were the royal priesthood, 
holy nation, etc., in case any could have doubted 
that he so meant. In Chap, iii, 6, he alludes to 
the women as daughters of Abraham. In Chap, 
iv, 3, 4, he is particularly severe upon the Gen- 



St. PAUL* 233 

tiles. When the Jews had *' walked in lascivious- 
ness, lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings, 
and abominable idolatries," they were but doing as 
the Gentiles would have them do, and they (the 
Gentiles) would think it strange that they did not 
continue to run with them to the same excesses. 

The Epistle of James, also, is addressed to the 
twelve tribes only. Those apostles could see 
nothing commendable in anybody but Jews; they 
tolerated no others. 

Barnabas seems to have been an important man 
among them, and we should have heard more of 
him but for the same reason, that he also had a 
record not in keeping with the doctrines of the 
church in later times. Paul's companionship with 
him is favorable to the supposition that he (Paul) 
did not consider him a rival, for Paul's nature 
demanded subjection to his will. In one instance, 
however, the people gave Barnabas the superior 
position, for while they called him Jupiter they 
called Paul Mercurius (Acts xiv, 12). This is in- 
consistent with the leading part attributed to Paul. 

Lewis, in his Life of St. Paul, states that this 
may have been owing to Paul's very small stature. 
He was too small a man to be consistent with 
their ideas of Jupiter. Nothing in the New 
Testament shows that Paul was a small-sized 
man. When we come to trace these little items 
of information derived from outside the New 
Testament, they usually prove to be from some 
confessedly untrustworthy source. From a more 



234 THE SAFE SIDE. 

or less acknowledged falsehood a little will often 
be accepted as truth simply because it was possi- 
ble and gratifies curiosity or because it is desir- 
able that it be held as truth. The progress of 
Christianity was not rapid enough to lift any of 
the characters in the New Testament out of ob- 
scurity in their own lifetimes. We know more of 
Paul than of Barnabas simply because his doctrines 
were more acceptable ; but we do not know how 
much of Barnabas 's has been suppressed, nor, for 
the same reason, do we know how Paul's intel- 
lectual abilities compared with his and with those 
of the other apostles, for even Paul's more accept- 
able doctrines were the result of circumstances. 

Paul's willingness to include Gentiles in the 
plan of salvation did not come through divine 
revelations to himself, nor through Peter's pre- 
tended vision, nor through commands of Christ, 
neither of which he had ever heard. He did not 
preach to Gentiles through heavenly wisdom or 
from a heart overflowing with loving kindness; 
but on the contrary it was anger, resentment, 
spite, that and nothing more, that turned Paul to 
them. He preached to Gentiles because he could 
not reach the Jew^s. With him it was Gentile fol- 
lowers or none. 

However much those original compilers and ex- 
pungers of the Bible may have suppressed, they 
still overlooked many little items that unsus- 
pectedly threw light upon that which they would 
have hidden. Their superstition in part, but 



ST. PAUL. 235 

mostly their incompetency, blinded them into ad- 
mitting certain passag-es that would have been 
rejected if they could have realized the full extent 
of that which they exposed. The 46th verse of 
the thirteenth chapter of Acts contains one of those 
items of information that usually would have been 
suppressed. To those men, however, this little 
item would have been a matter of indifference 
compared to the greater facts they were intent 
upon hiding. They wished to suppress all evi- 
dence of the local and temporary nature of the 
teachings of Christ, beside which the mere matter 
of Paul's personal distinction would seem hardly 
worthy of notice. Hence it is that the following 
verse was admitted which robs Paul of the glory 
of the one doctrine of his that made him the most 
prominent man in the formation of the Christian 
religion. He said to the Jews at Antioch : 

It was necessary that the w^ord of God should 
first have been spoken to you : but seeing ye put 
it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of 
everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. 

The Jews in other places were more incensed 
against him than against his companions. They 
drove him out of Thessalonica and Berea, al- 
though Silas and Timotheus could remain in 
the latter city (Acts xviii, i, 5, 6). Paul then 
preached in Athens, after which he went to Cor- 
inth, where there were Jews and a synagogue in 
which he reasoned every Sabbath. 

The New Testament shows that any Jew, when 



236 THE SAFE SIDE. 

SO disposed, could speak in the synagogues; nor 
were the Jews prohibited from advancing new 
doctrines or theories. Their religion was treated 
about as political questions are now. It was their 
law and their synagogues were public property. 
It is shown that Christ and his apostles preached 
their doctrines in the synagogues for a time. 
When Paul reached Corinth from Athens he evi- 
dently spoke in the synagogue at first as a Jew, 
and did not mention Christ until after the arrival 
of Silas and Timotheus. It seemingly required 
the presence of those men to give him the neces- 
sary courage to proclaim those accounts of Jesus 
that had become so obnoxious to the Jews. But 
when they arrived, " Paul was pressed in spirit, 
and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ," 
an assertion which, as usual, angered them. 

And when they opposed themselves, and blas- 
phemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto 
them. Your blood be upon your own heads: I am 
clean: from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles. 
(Acts xviii, 5, 6.) 

But Barnabas, unfortunately for him, did not 
share those feelings with Paul. He and the apos- 
tles had separated from him, and in so doing they 
turned their backs upon the Christian world and 
Christianity from that point left their history in 
obscurity. The Gentile question was the rock 
upon which they split. It was that which caused 
the suppression of the works of Peter and of the 
other apostles by the church in later times and 
caused their otherwise superior position to be 



ST. PAUL. 237 

superseded by that of Paul. As it is, Christianity 
has of them but. little more than their names. 
None of those men were laboring for future gen- 
erations, and when those generations came they 
had to ignore them or be left without the religion 
which they had been brought up to believe. 
Gibbon says that — 

The first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were all 
circumcised Jews and the congregations over which 
they presided united the law of Moses with the 
doctrine of Christ. It was natural that the primi- 
tive traditions of a church which was founded only 
forty days after the death of Christ, and was gov- 
erned almost as many years under the immediate 
inspection of his apostles, should be received as 
the standard of orthodoxy. The" distant churches 
very frequently appealed to the authority of their 
venerable parent and relieved her distresses by a 
liberal contribution of alms. 

All the inspired writers were Jews. If there is 
a word in the Bible by a Gentile (and there are 
many) it is an interpolation. So completely Jew- 
ish was the Church that it has been obliged to 
adopt their great conceit and admit that the Jews 
were originally God's chosen people; but it at- 
tempts to escape prolonging this humiliation by 
asserting that they ceased to be so when they 
crucified Christ. But Paul, their great authority, 
the only apostle who tolerated them, did not so 
teach. Such a sentiment as that would have filled 
him with indignation, the sacredness and supe- 
riority of the Jews being as much the cornerstone 
of his religion as of that of all the apostles. 



238 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Paul explains the matter very differently. All 
the covenants had been between God and the 
Jews. No sacred agreements whatever had been 
made for the Gentile world. He shows the latter 
that their great misfortune consisted in being 
strangers and aliens froin his country. Not being 
Jews they were without God in the world and no 
doubt quite unknown to Him. Like Peter, Paul 
considered that as they were not Jews they were 
"dead in trespasses and sins." They could not 
avail themselves of the sacred bargains made 
exclusively for the benefit of the Jews. The 
situation, therefore, left the Gentiles without 
hope. But Paul 'alone now took it upon himself 
to say that through faith in Christ they. could 
be admitted as parties in the sacred contracts. 
Paul saw no pulling-down of the Jews by the cru- 
cifixion ; such an idea would have been unendur- 
able to him. The service that Christ rendered 
was to elevate the Gentiles, though he does not 
make it clear whether they were elevated to an 
equality with the Jews in all respects or not. He 
probably did not intend to be so understood, for 
he boasted of how thoroughly a Jew he was and 
evidently considered that essential to his sacred- 
ness and leadership. 

The chapter where Paul explains this has not 
been tampered with so much but that his views 
are too clearly expressed to be misunderstood ex- 
cept by those who will not see. The words are in 
his Epistle to the Ephesians, Chap, ii : 



ST. PAUL. 239 

12 That at that time ye were without Christ, 
behig aliens from the conunonwealth of Israel^ and 
strangers from the covenants of promise, having 
no hope, and without God in the world : 

13 But now, in Christ Jesus, ye, who sometimes 
were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ. 

19 Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and 
foretgjiers^ but fellow citizens with the saints^ and of the 
household of God. 

Paul boasted that, however much a man might 
claim as a Jew, he could claim more. He said 
(Phil, iii, 4, 5) • 

If any other man thinketh that he hath where- 
of he might trust in the flesh, I more: 

Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of- 
Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the 
Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee. 

He has much to say about the law, meaning the 
Jewish religious laws and ceremonies, ten com- 
mandments, etc., and by substituting the latter 
words in place of the law in man)' instances much 
light will be thrown on his meaning (see Phil, iii, 
6, 9). He has enough to say about the law in 
connection with Christ to indicate that he recog- 
nized difficulties there which required explaining. 
Whether he did so satisfactorily in all cases is not 
clear, but the extent of his labors in connection 
therewith shows that he considered the work im- 
portant. He clearly taught that keeping the ten 
commandments alone would not save a man. If 
so, "then Christ is dead in vain." This matter 
will be treated of elsewhere. 



240 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Josephus also frequently wrote of the law in a 
sense that showed he referred to the ten command- 
ments. He states, as an illustration, that the 
Jews requested Vitellius to not march through a 
part of Judea, "for that the laws of their country- 
would not permit them to overlook these images 
which were brought into it, of which there were 
a great many in their ensigns," the law in this in- 
stance being the second commandment. 

John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, and St. Paul are 
nearly the sole actors in the beginning of Chris- 
tianity. John unknowingly originated the move- 
ment and Paul enlarged its field of operations. 
-The part that Christ performed was but little more 
than that of a figure. He supplied but the shadowy 
outlines of a short career, which each and every 
believer in the Christian era has filled up in his 
imagination according to his ideas of a God. The 
obscurity of Christ was an indispensable requisite 
to a successful adoption of his divine pretensions. 
It left full play for the imagination, which has 
done more for him than all the apostles and all the 
writers that ever lived. 

Paul evidently possessed great command of 
language. This has always been a greater power 
than it would be if people did not so often mistake 
superior language for wisdom. A fine flow of 
words often blinds the hearer or reader to errone- 
ous or inconsequential ideas. In those ancient 
times, when so few could read, it is probable that 
command of language was even a greater power 



ST. PAUL. 241 

than it is now. Some of Paul's epistles are looked 
upon as quite superior, the thirteenth chapter of 
First Corinthians as an instance. Some of the 
sentiments it expresses, however, are not exactly 
true, and the virtue of charity is exaggerated, as 
compared to other qualities; but its words flow 
sweetly quite themselves, like "a tinkling cym- 
bal." 

With such command of language as he had and 
such strong will and persistency, he did more 
than any other man (all, in fact) to sustain and 
extend the Christian movement in the most crit- 
ical time of its existence, the years between the cru- 
cifixion and the capture of Jerusalem by Titus. That 
event evidently gave an impetus to the Christian 
movement, as it filled the possible, because natural, 
prophecy of Christ, and was sufficient to prolong it 
into later times, when new considerations entered 
into its support. 
16 



CHAPTER XII. 

ST. PAUL AND THE ASCENSION. 



PAUL knew nothing of the ascension; it had 
not been thought of in his time. He often 
spoke of the resurrection and always had reference 
to it only, when alluding to Jesus having arisen. 

The story of the ascension grew in a natural 
manner and was probably not inserted in the New 
Testament until after the promulgation of the 
canonical gospels, as the only clear account of it 
is in the first chapter of Acts. It was an out- 
growth of the unsupematural presence of Jesus 
upon the earth. His ideas were simple. His 
second coming was to be soon — in the lifetime of 
his disciples — and no coming would be satisfactory 
unless he was seen coming " Among the clouds with 
the angels, armed with great power.'" (Matt, xxiv, 30; 
Mark xiv, 62; Luke xxi, 27.) And, while his 
coming was intended to be understood as desirable 
for the world, the description of what it was to be 
is one of terror. 

His predictions related mostly to Jerusalem and 
the temple, the destruction of the latter being 
magnified into a most important event. His field 
of operation and ideas of time and events were 
narrow. John the Baptist proclaimed the coming 



ST. PAUL AND THE ASCENSION. 243 

of the Messiah, and if Jesus was l,hat Messiah his 
presence fulfilled John's predictions and the proph- 
ecies of the Jews also; and now to still preach of 
another coming of Christ while he was yet here 
was equivalent to an admission that this first 
appearance was a disappointment and failure. It 
was. He did not fill their expectations, because 
he had been born like other people and had not 
come in the clouds, according to their ideas of a God. 
This was the greatest difficulty which Christ and 
his disciples had to overcome. People could not 
believe in the divinity of a man whose life they 
all knew to have been so commonplace. They 
said (Matt, xiii, 55, 56) : 

Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother 
called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, 
and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they 
not all with us? Whence then hath this man all 
these things? 

This was a natural criticism of one who made 
such pretensions. They recognized the fact that 
one claiming to be a God should have supernatural 
powers in coming to or leaving the earth, and 
several of thfe representations of Jesus evidently 
had their origin in efforts to overcome this diffi- 
culty. The doctrine of the immaculate concep- 
tion, for instance, was an indispensable necessity 
on the part of those claiming that a man bom 
like other people was, nevertheless, the Son of 
God. 

The second coming of Christ was simply a 



244 THE SAFE SIDE. 

promise to do in the future what he should have 
been able to do then. He had not come in the 
clouds, displaying great power and glory at that 
time, but would do so upon another occasion, in 
sight of his disciples. But when long afterwards 
that promise still remained unfulfilled the then 
powerful church incorporated into the New Testa- 
ment the story of the ascension. Christ had not 
originally come in the clouds, but they would 
remedy this by asserting that, at his final depar- 
ture, he went up into them. 

There are but two sentences in the four gospels 
indorsing the ascension and they only partially do 
so. In Luke xxiv, 51, are the words "and carried 
up into heaven," and in Mark xvi, 19, are the 
words " he was received up into heaven. " This is 
all that the gospels contain of the ascension. In 
neither instance is the idea conveyed that Christ 
appeared bodily to ascend, as similar expressions 
even in our time are used in a spiritual sense, and, 
but for the few words in Acts i, 9, 10, there is 
nothing in the New Testament that would even 
suggest such an idea. Those words are: "He 
was taken up ; and a cloud received him out of 
their sight. And while they looked steadfastly 
toward heaven as he went up." These few words 
and the reference to it in the 2 2d verse of the same 
chapter give us all the knowledge we have of the 
ascension. None of the writers of the New Testa- 
ment exhibits elsewhere any knowledge of that 
event, 



ST. PAUL AND THE ASCENSION. 245 

When Paul was under arrest and severally ex- 
amined by Felix, Festus, and Agrippa, there were 
two reasons why all details of his belief would be 
gone over. One was that the charges against him 
related to his doctrines, which were those that 
had previously led to so much disturbance. He 
was — 

A mover of sedition among all the Jews through- 
out the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the 
Nazarenes : 

Who also hath gone about to profane the tem- 
ple. (Acts xxiv, 5, 6.) 

An investigation, therefore, of the charges 
against Paul would draw out his views in making 
his defense. It involved giving a history of the 
sect of the Nazarenes, and, consequently, a full 
account of Christ. 

The other reason was that, in so doing, he would 
endeavor (as he evidently did) to convert his ex- 
aminers to his doctrines. In doing this, he would 
necessarily repeat all the story of Christ as he un- 
derstood it, and there is no one event he would 
have more carefully set forth than the ascension. 
Such a wonderful event, if true, would then have 
been capable of abundant proof and would have 
been more convincing than anything that could 
have been related of Christ. In fact, such an 
event would have been irresistible; it would be 
proof. 

On the other hand, if there had been no ascen- 
sion, then Paul must have believed that Jesus was 
still alive, as there was no other account of his 



246 THE SAFE SIDE. * 

death after the resurrection. Festus, under all 
these circumstances, could not have misunderstood 
Paul on those two important points: the resurrec- 
tion and the ascension. Both were equally super- 
natural and wonderful, and it is very improbable 
that the one should have been clearly stated and 
the other utterly ignored. In his account of Paul 
to Agrippa, Festus said : 

But had certain questions against him of their 
own superstition and of one Jesus, which was 
dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive. (Acts 
XXV, 19.) 

In I Cor. XV, 3 to 8, Paul is represented as 
enumerating all the leading events in the life of 
Jesus, but, as usual, his narrative ends with the 
resurrection. We are not permitted to know what 
other ideas Paul may have had as to Christ after 
that time. If any were ever recorded, they would 
naturally have been eliminated by the same au- 
thorities who interpolated the ascension, and at 
the same time. 

Paul, therefore, who was so near and who la- 
bored so much for the cause, and who could not 
have been ignorant of such an event as the ascen- 
sion if it had occurred, gave more than his silent 
testimony against it. All his representations 
plainly end with the resurrection and he clearly 
conveyed the idea to Festus that he believed Jesus 
to be still alive. 

(It is worthy of note that this mention of Jesus 
was made at a little earlier date than that given 



. ST. PAUL AND THE ASCENSION. 247 

by Josephus of the man Jesus in Tiberias, who 
was leader of a band of mariners and poor people.) 
Strauss' says: 

Thus it is undeniable that the above evangelists 
were ignorant of the ascension; but the conclusion 
of the most recent criticism, that this ignorance 
is a reproach to the first evangelist as a sign of his 
unapostolic character, is the less in place here be- 
cause the event in question is rendered suspicious 
not merely by the silence of two evangelists, but 
also by the want of agreement between those who 
narrate it. Mark is at variance with Luke ; nay, 
Luke is at variance with himself. In the account 
of the former it appears as if Jesus had ascended 
into heaven immediately from the meal at which 
he appeared unto the eleven ; consequently from 
out of a house in Jerusalem. * * * Now an as- 
cent into heaven directly out of a room is certainly 
not easy to imagine; hence Luke represents it as 
taking place in the open air. In his gospel he 
makes Jesus immediately before his ascension lead 
out his disciples as far as Bethany, but in the Acts 
he places the scene on the mount called Olivet. 
This, however, cannot be imputed to him as a 
contradiction, since Bethany lay in the neighbor- 
hood of the Mount of Olives. 

Paul claimed to be a Roman citizen, although 
his right to do so is not apparent. This was in 
the height of the glory of Roman citizenship, and 
any false pretense of it was often punished with 
death. When he was before both Felix and Festus 
he was in a position where his discharge involved 
greater danger than would his trial by the Roman 
officers. Surrounded as he was with enemies, he 



' Life of Jesus, page 863. 



248 THE SAFE SIDE. 

could not have gotten out of Judea alive. Under 
such circumstances, claiming to be a Roman and 
appealing to the emperor would give him consider- 
able time, with the chance that his explanation of 
the cause of his claiming the rights of a Roman 
citizen might excuse the act. He is represented 
as having made this claim on a previous occasion, 
but that instance involved no danger in making 
it. Felix, Festus, and Agrippa were all willing 
to discharge him, and if he had two trials in 
Rome, as represented, may it not be that his 
second trial was upon a charge of his having un- 
lawfully claimed the rights of a Roman, involving 
as it did transportation to Rome, and that he was 
put to death for that reason? 

When he was a prisoner in Rome and in danger 
of death, the epistles he then wrote breathe a 
more religious spirit than was usual with him. 
Take as an example Phil, iv, 8 : 

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, 
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things 
are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever 
things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good 
report ; if there be any virtue, and if there be any 
praise, think on these things. 

Sentiments of this nature are natural and would 

be advanced in substance by thousands in any age, 

according to the degree of their intelligence. 

Their spirit was created with us and was never 

for a moment indebted to Christ, the apostles, or 

anything in the Bible. Precisely what Irving said 

of Mohammedanism may be said of Christianity: 



ST. PAUL AND THE ASCENSION. 249 

// is a great truth coupled with a great falsehood. There 
is but one God and for such divine directions as 
he wishes to give us he needs neither Mohammed 
nor Christ. 

There were evidently no Christians in Rome 
when Paul arrived there. The brethren he met 
were his Jew brethren. They had never heard of 
Paul, but had heard of the sect he represented and 
they stated that they were everywhere spoken 
against. (Acts xxviii, 22.) They had a natural 
curiosity to hear this new and strange Jewish doc- 
trine, but his denunciation of them in the 25th to 
28th verses of that chapter indicates that he met */ 

with unsatisfactory results. In the last-mentioned 
verse he again turns to the Gentiles. The spirit 
of it is that if the Jews would not receive salvation 
it would be given to the Gentiles. 

Paul's Jewish belief was as strong in him as his 
belief in Christ, and his virtual expulsion from 
Judea was quite as -serious to him as excommuni- 
cation would have been. In his Epistle to the 
Hebrews and in Acts xxi, it is disclosed that he 
weakened in the exalted position given Jesus and 
was willing to both retract and bring him down 
somewhat if he (Paul) could be restored to favor 
with his countrymen. The charges as recorded 
in the 21st verse of the last-mentioned chapter 
were true. Paul had taught in substance as 
therein stated that salvation w^as secured through 
faith in Christ alone; that it was not necessary to 
be a Jew or be circumcised or have knowledge of 



250 THE SAFE SIDE. 

the laws of Moses. The passages have not been 
so modified but that it can be clearly seen that the 
brethren were censuring Paul and recommending 
him to purify himself, that " all may know that 
these charges were nothing;" that is to say, that 
he now repudiates them (xxi, 24). Paul's com- 
pliance with this request by a ceremony which it 
took seven days to perform is a virtual retraction of 
those sentiments to which he owes his fame. His 
being requested to purify and the detailed direc- 
tions given show that that ceremony was not one 
he had, for other causes, deemed it necessary to 
perform. This was immediately after his arrival 
in Jerusalem, where he had probably gone to sta)% 
as indicated by this submission and by his having 
taken leave of foreign churches by representing 
that they would see his face no more. 

In his Epistle to the Hebrews he wrote that 
Jesus was called of God a high priest after the 
order of Melchisedec (v, 6, \o; vi, 20, etc.), a 
supernatural personage whom he describes as hav- 
ing been without father, without mother, without 
descent, having neither beginning of days, nor 
end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, 
abiding a priest continually. Now consider, he 
says, how great this man was, for the patriarch 
Abraham gave him a tenth of the spoils, whereas 
the most favored tribes were made to pay Abraham 
a tenth. He goes on to show Melchisedec to be 
quite outside of and superior to the tribes of Israel 
and the laws of Moses, to whom he was unknown. 



ST. PAUL AND THE ASCENSION. 25 I 

He enlarges at some length upon Melchisedec, 
chiefly in Chap, vii, and in his whole description 
he plainly draws a parallel with Christ with the 
evident intention of showing his broad claim for 
Christ to be simply a renewal of claims they had 
previously accepted and ought to accept again. 
Melchisedec, he says, was like the Son of God, and 
he places him at the head of an order of priesthood 
wherein Christ follows in a secondary position. 

In efforts to explain away Paul's account of 
Melchisedec, the words, without father, without 
mother, luithout descent, are represented to mean 
without pedigree. This is a w^eak evasion and has 
no bearing upon the most important part of the 
question. Paul had good command of language 
and would not have so expressed himself. If the 
pedigree of noted characters had been a matter of 
interest to him, he would have manifested it in 
the case of others. This explanation would make 
it appear that Paul gave the absence of Melchis- 
edec's pedigree as one of his marked similarities 
to Christ. But the gospel-writers, in their eager- 
ness to give Jesus a pedigree, succeeded in giving 
him two. 

This subterfuge does not explain Paul's further 
statement that Melchisedec had neither beginning 
nor end of life. He said he was " like unto the 
Son of God," and hence the lower Paul is shown 
to have placed Melchisedec the lower he placed 
Christ, for to show, a similarity between them was 
his only object. 



2 52 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Melchizedek, king of Salem, is mentioned in 
Genesis xiv, i8, and Abraham's return from the 
slaughter of the kings, but the remainder of Paul's 
account is not given. This suggests the question 
as to how much of the Jewish books was excluded 
from the Bible that ought to have been admitted. 
Belief in the divinity of Christ enforced a belief 
in the sacredness of those books, but this enforced 
acceptance would naturally be objectionable and 
would be resisted as far as possible. No books 
were evidently accepted except those referred to 
by Jesus and the writers of the New Testament; 
but there is nothing to show that all so referred 
to were admitted. Paul in this instance refers to 
records of which the Christian world knows noth- 
ing, but which must have originally formed a part 
of those works which the church now calls the 
Word of God. As it is, the New Testament is said 
to refer to 31 of the 39 books of the Old Testa- 
ment, and those 31 no doubt refer to the other 8 
and more. 

Paul never had the faintest conception of the 
pinnacle upon which he was standing. He knew 
nothing of the renown that awaited him and of the 
vast importance that would be attached to his let- 
ters. The temporary nature of his religion did 
not admit of the thought that time and fame would 
bring together those widely scattered epistles and 
canonize their contents as the inspired wisdom of 
God. That which he wrote to his countrymen he 
thought only his countrymen would read, and 



ST. PAUL AND THE ASCENSION. 253 

hence, in his anxiety to placate them and be re- 
stored to favor, he burdened the church with Mel- 
chisedec. According to him this man was a god, 
and yet the church has not been able to accept him 
(Melchisedec), as there were already three in the 
Godhead and a fourth was too much even for 
Christian credulity. That part of Paul's account 
is therefore numbered with the many parts of the 
Bible which Christians pretend to believe, but 
wholly ignore. 

Contrast the full account given of Melchisedec 
with the limited account of the ascension. The 
church needed the latter; hence upon the basis of 
a couple of sentences it has always put forth its 
finest efforts in language and paintings; but Mel- 
chisedec was in the way and he has therefore been 
left in unexplained obscurity.' 

Even the resurrection is but weakly asserted 
in the gospels. Matthew mentions but two in- 
stances of Christ's appearance and those were in 
the nature of an apparition, where some doubted. 
According to Mark he appeared three times, first 
to one who did not recognize him, then in a dif- 
ferent form to two others who also did not know 
him, and finally to the eleven, making fourteen in 
all. Luke mentions but two instances, and he was 
not known at first in either. The Fourth Gospel 
adds an appearance in Galilee, but still unrecog- 

' Melchisedec is supposed to have been the founder of 
Jerusalem, about 2050 b.c. — Dean' s History of Civiliza- 
tion, 



254 THE SAFE SIDE. 

nized. In other words, the gospels mention two, 
or possibly three, instances of an appearance of 
Jesus after the crucifixion, and they admit that the 
very few witnesses did not at first recognize him 
and some doubted even then. Paul is made to 
say (i Cor. xv, 6) that he was seen by five hundred, 
but this testimony came far too late. It is incon- . 
sistent with Paul's silence on that point upon other 
occasions and inconsistent with all other accounts. 
Its late date and the importance of the item con- 
centrated in a few words show that it is an inter- 
polation and demonstrate that the church had in 
those later times become awake to the need of 
more witnesses of the resurrection. 

In confidingly believing that which leads to such 
vast results upon such slight evidence, the Chris- 
tian does not make so much of an exhibition of 
his devotion to Christ as he does of his devotion 
to the sanctity of credulity. 

It is said that so many eyes have been fastened 
upon the Bible that from necessity it has come 
down to us through later centuries unaltered. But 
two incidents related of Paul suggest that this 
may be a theory only, and not strictly true. 
Throughout most of the Christian era there were 
few who would be disposed to point out any alter- 
ations if discovered, and even at the present time, 
if some old manuscript or other evidence should 
be unearthed that contained matter unfavorable to 
the truth of that book, our most honest and intel- 
ligent ecclesiastics would not perceive that it was 



ST. PAUL AND THE ASCENSION. 255 

their religious duty to make known such discovery, 
but, on the contrary, they would treat it as an oc- 
casion for sorrow and tears, and one which if pos- 
sible should be relegated back to oblivion. The 
incidents referred to are narrated in the following 
verses : 

And there sat in a window a certain young man 
named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: 
and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down 
with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and 
was taken up dead. (Acts xx, 9. ) 

And through a window in a basket was I let 
down by the wall, and escaped his hands. (II 
Cor. xi, 33.) 

The interest in these incidents centers in the 
fact that there were no windows in use in those 
times, nor for many hundred years thereafter. 
Thomas Hope, in his Historical Essay on Archi- 
tecture, states that — 

The ancients seem long to have manufactured 
vases and other portable objects of glass ere they 
thought of applying that close and yet diaphanous 
substance to its most useful and agreeable purpose: 
that of excluding from apartments the cold and 
wet of the atmosphere, while admitting all the 
heat and light of the sun ; and the want of the thin 
plates of glass, now used for that purpose, only 
permitted them to throw into apartments a con- 
siderable body of light, by exposing them at the 
same time to every inclemency of the weather, or, 
to protect them effectually against w^et and wind, 
b)^ excluding in the same proportion all daylight 
and contenting themselves with the dim glare of 
lamps. In general, it caused them to seek a medium 
between the two extremes by suffering a few 
straggling rays of light to penetrate athwart the 



256 THE SAFE SIDE. 

ends of the rafters that lay on the walls and formed 
the ceiling-, or by introducing immediately under 
the shelter and projection of the eaves a sort of 
wide, low window, which, only commencing, for 
the sake of restricting its perpendicular opening 
and permeability, high from the floor, afforded no 
view of external objects. These restraints, as we 
before observed, influenced the whole of their 
architectural system : it caused the smaller tem- 
ples to receive the requisite light through an 
enormous door, always open, and the larger ones to 
remain hypaethral, and thus, even within, little 
better than external courts; and such was not only 
the magnificent Temple of Minerva at Athens, but 
even the Pantheon at Rome, of which the round 
central opening only shows all the beauties by 
permitting every passing shower to deluge its 
gorgeous pavement. It caused the dwelling- 
houses, for seclusion as well as safety, to shun all 
windows outside; to have every aperture for light, 
as for egress, turned inwardly to a vast open court 
or impletorium, and only to present to the street, 
instead of the multifarious windows of modern 
habitations, an impenetrable dead wall; it even 
caused so many apartments of every sort to be 
left, for warmth and comfort, entirely destitute of 
windows, or apertures for daylight, of every de- 
scription, that in the baths of Titus the fine group 
of the Laocoon was found in a room which, how- 
ever glittering with precious marbles, depended 
entirely, for the light that made them visible, on 
artificial illumination. 



Later, indeed, than Theodosius, in some funeral 
chapels, such as that built at Ravenna by Galla 
Placidia for all her near relations, and by Con- 
stantia for her father, the windows, probably by 
way of increasing the gloom, were still so narrow 
as to resemble mere loopholes; and afterwards, 



ST. PAUL AND THE ASCENSION. 257 

in conventual churches, it again became the gen- 
eral rule to so contract the windows, as to clog 
their openings by intervening pillars, that they 
scarcely admitted any direct light. 

More than two hundred years after Paul's time, 
Diocletian, after his abdication, built a palace that 
was much celebrated for its magnificence. He 
had been Emperor about twenty years and must 
necessarily have brought to bear all the architect- 
ural knowledge of his age. Gibbon gives a de- 
scription of this palace, in which he says : 

But they [the rooms] all were attended with two 
imperfections, very repugnant to our modern no- 
tions of taste and conveniency. These stately 
rooms had neither windows nor chimneys. They 
were lighted from the top (for the building seems 
to have consisted of no more than one story) and 
they received their heat by the help of pipes that 
were conveyed along the walls. 

Pompeii was buried under the mud and ashes 
of Vesuvius about 20 or 30 years after the time of 
Paul, and the absence of windows in its ruins gives 
the streets a desolate and prisonlike appearance. 
The rare openings that were possible at that time 
were not such as a man could fall out of. Those 
two incidents have a wonderfully modern sound 
and could not have been in the New Testament 
until many hundred years after the time referred 
to. It may be represented that the first-mentioned 
incident indicates God's displeasure at any dere- 
liction of duty to the clergy, and that was the 

abundant motive for its interpolation. 
17 



258 THE SAFE SIDE. 

There has been much speculation as to whether 
Paul ever saw Jesus or not. The circumstances 
indicate that he did. He said he was a Pharisee 
and he was one of the most bitter in persecuting 
the disciples. He was present when Stephen was 
stoned to death, to which he consented, and " kept 
the raiment of them that slew him." He there- 
fore had to the fullest extent those prevailing 
feelings among the people that forced Pilate to 
consent to the crucifixion, and, necessarily, he 
must have become possessed of those feelings from 
the same cause. It is true, he might have been 
absent at the time and have known of those events 
only by common report. But the mind is never 
so much impressed by verbal accounts of exciting 
events as it is by witnessing them. Certainly, 
verbal accounts would not raise greater feelings 
than were produced in those that took part in 
those events, particularly in a man like Paul, 
whose persistency in his purposes indicates any- 
thing but a flighty mind. 

Necessarily, before his conversion, he must have 
been equally devoted to the Jewish faith, as is 
indicated by his bitterness against Christ's follow- 
ers. To men of such sentiments as his then were, 
there was no act so unforgivable as taking enforced 
possession of their temple. Necessarily, too, the 
amount of feeling such desecration would raise 
in each would be measured by the extent of their 
natural religious mental faculty, and, as stated, 
it was evidently large in Paul. He must have 



ST. PAUL AND THE ASCENSION. 259 

imbibed those feelings against Christ by personal 
observation. His subsequent labors would cause 
him to be reticent upon any offensive part he 
might have then taken. His reticence, therefore, 
is evidence that he did take part rather than the 
contrary, for he was too near those events and had 
too much bitterness of feeling to have not seen 
Christ during the tumults in Jerusalem, and he 
would have so stated if his part at the time had 
been such as to be unobjectionable in his new 
belief. It is probable, therefore, that Paul did 
see Christ, that he was amonof those Pharisees who 
clamored for his crucifixion, and that he was a 
witness of it. 



CHAPTER XIIL 

FAITH. 

ONE feature peculiar to the Christian system is 
the supposition that faith is often tried by the 
wickedness of this world. It is pictured as a cross 
upon a rock in the midst of a dark and stormy sea, 
and it is implied that only by most devout watch- 
fulness and care can faith be retained. It is be- 
ing constantly held up as the Christian hope and 
salvation. Fully a fourth of all sermons and 
Christian writings are devoted to it. The word 
beautifully decorated in countless ways " is con- 
stantly kept in view and the importance of the 
thing itself for the maintenance of their system 
is ever before them. As the soldier nerves him- 
self to brave the dangers of battle, so does the 
Christian believer nerve himself to withstand the 
many severe trials upon his faith that he is made 
to believe he will encounter in his dealings with 
the world. 

But if this be true it is important to know just 
where his faith will be most severely attacked in 
order that he may be upon his guard and call in such 
help as he can to sustain himself. Necessarily he 
does not experience those trials in church, for it is 



FAITH. 261 

there that he is fortified and confirmed in the sup- 
posed importance of it. His trials must neces- 
sarily be when he is away from those influences 
and when, for the time, he is guided by his own 
mind alone. To understand the Christian's trial 
of faith, therefore, we need to look to his experi- 
ence outside of rather than within the church. But, 
in all transactions with other people of every 
name and nature, there is but one moral question 
for each party to consider, and that is to see that 
they deal conscientiously with one another. In 
his dealing with others, if the believer is cheated, 
that circumstance has no bearing upon his faith. 
He may regret the dishonesty of those who cheated 
him, but it w411 not in the least disturb his reli- 
gious opinions. 

But if he himself should happen to be the guilty 
person, he will find that the teachings of Chris- 
tianity will lull his mind to quietness and rest. 
Only within it is there tenderness expressed for 
such acts. Only there is he taught that his sin 
may be forgiven; and, though often repeated, it 
may still as often be forgiven. It is only there 
that his sin is obscured and made to seem exceed- 
ingly small through contrast with a great, myste- 
rious, and tmjust load of sin inherited through 
Adam's fall; and it is only there that he is taught 
that by faith he may be released from the con- 
sequences of his inherited sins and also from the 
consequences of those delinquencies for which 
Adam was not responsible. He has no trials of 



262 THE SAFE SIDE. 

faith here, for faith is especially adapted to those 
who have been wicked or contemplate being so. 
It is a license rather than the contrary to the 
tempted. In no place can the Christian retain 
his faith with such ease as in those transactions 
wherein his own integrity is at fault. The Chris- 
tian's faith never undergoes trials in business. 

And yet there are times when the faith of the 
intelligent Christian is most severely tried, when, 
but for early associations and the opinions of 
others, he would be '' ingulfed in the waves of un- 
belief. " He may study the works of God and find 
his study expanding more and more with rich new 
discoveries, and, instead of those of a late date 
conflicting with those of a former, he will find 
they only the more increase his admiration and 
wonder of God. The field for further exploration 
of His works is unlimited, and the facts found by 
one generation always perfectly agree with those 
found by the generation before. Whatever branch 
of God's works he may adopt he will always find 
it above the comprehension of man. Much may 
have been discovered, but it will be small as com- 
pared with that yet to be discovered. It is only 
after contemplation of those works, and when he 
turns to his Bible and reads of the ideas of God 
as expressed by its writers, that the intelligent 
Christian's faith is tried. 

The believer's trials of faith lie wholly between 
the works of God and that which they call the 
word of God. The test which the works of God, as 



FAITH. 263 

measured by man's understanding, always bear 
the so-called word of God never bears. The lat- 
ter can be understood fully. The ignorance and 
superstition of its writers are plainly exposed in 
their works, their ideas and motives may be easily 
accounted for, and the developments of time are 
constantly widening the gap between those ideas 
and the better known works of God. The people 
at large do nothing to disturb the faith of the 
Christian. He can avoid all study of any of God's 
works and his life-long schooling in the supposed 
virtue of faith will secure its retention unclouded 
with the least doubt. The writers of the Bible 
knew comparatively nothing of the works of God, 
and if their followers do not wish to doubt their 
statements they must keep their own knowledge 
down to a level with those writers. Whenever the 
believer tries to explain away parts of the Bible, 
either by the favorite plan of allegory or in any 
other manner, he is simply vshuffling between his 
better knowledge and his faith, between the en- 
lightenment of our times and the ignorance of 
the past. 

Faith is the abdication of reason. Paul tried 
to defend it from some such a charge as this with 
the negative argument that " The wisdom of this 
world is foolishness with God" (I Cor. iii, 19), and 
expressed the same determination in regard to it 
that Falstaff did with honor, he would have 7ione of 
it. So with Paul, he w^ould know nothing " save 
Jesus Christ, and him crucified." (I Cor. ii, 2.) 



264 THE SAFE SIDE. 

His ideas of opposition of science were that it was 
profane babblings^ and experience seemed to have 
taught him, not to combat, but to avoid it. (I 
Tim. vi, 20.) 

And yet Paul wrote nothing more directly to 
the point than this. The end in view was to con- 
vince as many as he could that Jesus was the Son 
of God, and the reasons he had to offer in proof 
were such as only the most ignorant, most super- 
stitious, most credulous, could accept; and hence 
he advocated avoidance of anything that tended to 
elevate the people above that condition. He in- 
stilictively recognized the point just stated, that, 
to keep faith in Jesus pure, the believer's intel- 
ligence must not be above the superstitious nature 
of the evidence. 

It is not true that the wisdom of this world is 
foolishness with God. It is wisdom so far as it 
goes, even though it is insufficient to guide the 
universe. A man might as well willfully close 
his eyes and stumble around in the dark because 
artificial light does not equal the light of the sun 
as to willfully refuse to avail himself of such wis- 
dom as man possesses. Even that narrow limit is a 
large enough ocean for the intellect of those who 
presume to criticise the management of that God 
by asserting that he made a partial failure in his 
control of the human race. The question of faith 
is a very small one. There is nothing complicated 
■ about it. It came through a natural succession 
of simple circumstances and can be easily under- 



FAITH. 265 

Stood by those who will look at it in the unshaded 
light of their intelligence. 

The following, taken from the eighth chapter 
of Matthew, is an illustration of the ideas of a God 
as manifested by the so-called inspired writer, 
and, if his judgment therein had been reliable, 
this incident would have filled us with equally as 
much awe as it did him. Such difference as time 
would have developed would tend to disclose new 
proofs of Jesus' divine power which those ancient 
writers did not see. Whether we have growing 
admiration or growing disgust for such accounts 
as this is dependent upon whether we believe that 
Jesus was or was not the Son of God. As before 
stated, I believe this to be allegorical and that it 
refers to another Jesus; but it is deemed worthy 
of a place in all the synoptic gospels as the in- 
spired word of God, and Christianity, therefore, 
is responsible for such intelligence as it displays. 

28 And when he was come to the other side, 
into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him 
two possessed with devils, coming out of the 
tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might 
pass by that way. 

29 And behold, they cried out, saying. What 
have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? 
art thou come hither to torment us before the 
time? 

30 And there was a good way off from them a 
herd of many swine, feeding. 

31 So the devils besought him, saying. If thou 
cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of 
swine. 

32 And he said unto them. Go. And when they 



266 THE SAFE SIDE. 

were come out, they went into the herd of swine: 
and behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently 
down a steep place into the sea, and perished in 
the waters. 

34 And behold, the whole city came out to meet 
Jesus: and when they saw him, they besought him 
that he would depart out of their coasts. 

The strength of that feeling which holds us to 
our duty to our families and our fellow men is an 
exhibition of the power of our Creator to make us 
know that which it is indispensable we should 
know. But Christians represent God as soliciting 
us to know that Jesus Christ was His son and as 
proposing by such accounts as this to fix that all- 
important item of knowledge in our minds. This 
incident makes as strong demand upon our faith 
as anything in the Bible. It has precisely the 
same authority and is given as one of the important 
evidences of the divinity of Christ. It was in the 
full belief of such incidents as this that the first 
converts were made, and they were the only 
Christians who ever judged of this question on its 
merits. People who were deranged they sup- 
posed were possessed by devils. Their supersti- 
tious fears of devils were great, and no power that 
Jesus could be said to possess would sooner attract 
their attention or would more excite their wonder 
and awe. The men who were won over to Jesus 
by such stories as this were the men who fastened 
the Christian superstition upon the world; for 
after their time other motives and interests en- 



Faith. 267 

tered in to support it and the opportunity for in- 
dependent judgment never came again. Until 
recently, however, all believers within the Chris- 
tian era have believed in just such stories as 
this. 

Although believers make so much of their self- 
created virtue, faith, there was much believed by 
the highest of the early Christian authorities that 
is not believed by their successors in our time. 
While decrying unbelievers in general, they are 
themselves unbelievers in certain details. The 
existence of a devil is denied by the more intel- 
ligent supporters of the divinity of Christ. But 
there is no other thing more persistently set forth 
throughout the Bible, nor more profoundly be- 
lieved by Christ and his disciples. The devil is 
represented as possessing powers quite equal with 
God Himself ; in fact the doctrine of the atonement 
implies even greater power on the part of Satan 
in some respects. The pretense of saving the 
world is dependent upon there being a devil from 
whom to save it. So much of the system through- 
out is interwoven with accounts of the devil, so 
much of its story and machinery is with especial 
reference to him, that belief in the devil (some- 
times respectfully called the Adversary) is as fully 
a dogma of the Christian system as belief in Christ. 
The devil is the cornerstone of that system ; with- 
out him the whole fabric must fall. This has of 
late been a question of embarrassment to the 
church, as instances have occurred where it has 



268 THE SAFE SIDE. 

been necessary to act upon it, and the absurdity 
and humiliation of expelling a member for heresy 
because he did not believe in a devil were fully 
recognized. 

The Christian whose faith does not include be- 
lief in the devil insults the intelligence of his 
savior and denies that there was any necessity for 
his coming. Christ says: "The disciple is not 
above his master, nor the servant above his lord" 
(Matt. X, 24) ; therefore anything that he believed 
must not be doubted by his followers. He not 
only believed in a devil, but he believed in a 
variety of devils. He said (Mark ix, 29) in refer- 
ence to a devil that was particularly hard to expel 
that " This kind can come forth by nothing but by 
prayer and fasting. " 

In the account of Christ in the wilderness the 
devil is referred to in respectful terms and his 
power treated as though it was practically un- 
limited. 

According to Jude the brother of Jesus, even 
Moses was claimed by the devil, and as high au- 
thority as the archangel Michael " durst not bring 
against him a railing accusation, but said. The 
Lord rebuke thee." (Jude,. 9th verse.) 

Necessarily, therefore, all orthodox Christians 
must believe in the devil as fully as in Christ. 
However opposite they may be in character, they 
are inseparable in the system. Faith must in- 
clude them both. 

The author of The Unseen Universe quotes the 



FAITH. 269 

following from The Lord's Prayer, a book written 
by Rev. Charles Parsons Reichel, b.d. : 

If the testimony of Scripture be deemed suffi- 
cient, then I cannot see that it is possible to deny 
the personal existence of Satan any more than 
that of God. How Satan exists or where at the 
present time, or how his power avails, as we are 
told it does, to contrive and suggest temptations 
to the mind of man, and to what extent he is aware 
of what is passing in men's minds, so as to adapt 
his suggestions to their weakness, we are not told, 
and do not therefore know\ But our not being 
told the manner in which his power is exercised 
and brought to bear, is no proof of the unreality 
of that fearful Being who is everywhere in the 
New Testament exhibited as the adversary of 
God and goodness, whether in the individual or in 
the development of the human race. 

The story of Jonah in the whale's belly is also 
rejected by many within the system, but Christ 
believed it. He said (Matt, xii, 40) : " For as 
Jonas was three days and three nights in the 
whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three 
days and three nights in the heart of the earth." 

The fabulous character of the Bible account of 
Noah and the flood is now established beyond the 
possibility of doubt; yet Jesus believed that ac- 
count. (See Matt, xxiv, 37, 38, 39.) 

We are told that Christ lived and died as much 
for us as for those of his own time. It was, there- 
fore, just as important that he should have devoted 
some time to convincing the generations to come, 
in that which it was so important to believe, as to 
convincing those in his presence. This he could 



270 THE SAFE SIDE. 

easily have done by announcing facts then un- 
known, but which have since been learned and 
have done much to elevate mankind. Christ and 
his followers were bitter against idolaters, and, as 
there were worshipers of the sun in those days, 
he could have done much to prevent that form of 
idolatry and could have greatly enhanced human 
knowledge by explaining what is now known of 
the sun and solar system. Thus also would he 
have prevented the manifest absurdity of a belief 
in the successful effort which Joshua is credited 
with having made in upsetting our whole planetary 
system by causing the wrong body to stand still. 
Churchmen now at times endeavor to belittle what 
is known in astronomy by showing what astron- 
omers do not know and also by ridiculing their 
former theories, which are now acknowledged to be 
erroneous, and give that as a reason for ignoring 
facts about which there is no question whatever. 
Our first lessons alone in that study are enough to 
expose the ignorance of the so-called inspired 
writers. There was not a man then in existence 
who knew that the world was round or that the 
sun did not move around it daily. Nothing could 
have been so convincing of Christ's supernatural 
powers as would have been such an exhibition of 
knowledge of important facts then unknown. If 
he had been what he is represented as being, it 
would have been a very simple matter to leave 
not thfe least doubt upon that question. 

The steam engine has conduced more to the 



FAITH. 271 

prosperity of the world within this century than 
has all that Christians claim for Christianity with- 
in its more than eighteen hundred years of exist- 
ence. All machinery has come into use within a 
very short time, the invention of the steam engine 
having led to its introduction. It has revolution- 
ized the world and has been one of mankind's 
greatest blessings. It has done much to secure 
"peace on earth, good will toward men," a service 
which Christianity promised, but never rendered. 
If Christ had given the world the steam engine, 
he would indeed have appeared like a god. No 
miracle could have astonished his disciples more 
and no effects could have been so convincing to 
subsequent generations. 

Said Thos. H. Benton, in a speech in the United 
States Senate: 

Christ and the apostles appeared in a province 
of the Roman empire when that empire was called 
the Roman world and that world was filled with 
slaves. Forty millions was the estimated number, 
being one-fourth of the whole population. A 
freedman, one who had himself been a slave, died 
the possessor of four thousand ; such were the num- 
bers. The right of the owners over this multi- 
tude of human beings was that of life and death, 
without protection from law or mitigation from 
public sentiment. The scourge, the cross, the 
fish-pond, the den of the wild beasts, and the arena 
of the gladiator were the lot of the slave, upon 
the slightest expression of the master's will. A 
law of incredible atrocity made all slaves respon- 
sible with their own lives for the life of their mas- 
ter. It was the law that condemned the whole 



272 THE SAFE SIDE. 

household of slaves to death in case of the assassi- 
nation of the master, a law under which as many as 
four hundred have been executed at a time. And 
these slaves were the white people of Europe and 
of Asia Minor, the Greeks and other nations, from 
which the present inhabitants of the world derive 
the most valuable productions of the human mind. 
Christ saw all this, the number of the slaves, their 
hapless condition, and their white color, which 
was the same with his own ; 5^et he said nothing 
against slavery. 

The short Epistle by James, in the New Testa- 
ment, was probably inserted for the same reason 
that caused the insertion of the Epistle of Peter. 
It would not do to pass by the brother of Jesus, 
even though his doctrines were objectionable. 
He evidently confined himself to Judea, and his 
sentiments were promulgated before the wide in- 
terest of the church had developed wants in con- 
flict with them. That epistle is clearly by a dif- 
ferent writer, as it is in marked contrast with the 
others and breathes a purer religious spirit and 
has less objectionable matter than any other book 
in the New Testament. It also exhibits a slight 
famil)'- resemblance to Jesus in ideas, by the se- 
vere denunciations which James makes against 
the rich. Those two were more severe upon that 
class than were any others named in the New Tes- 
tament. In his address, given in Acts xv, and in 
his epistle, a slight personal characteristic is man- 
ifested in the frequent use of the words "my 
brethren." 

In his time, the few believers had not yet awak- 



FAITH. 273 

ened to the fact that, to make people believe that 
Jesus was the Son of God, there must be a consid- 
eration attached to, and obtainable only through, 
that belief. If heaven could be reached without 
that faith, then such faith was unimportant and 
unnecessary. But this was unknown in James's 
time, and he, consequently, gave an honest and 
natural opinion of the relation that faith should 
bear to works. His views are clearly set forth in 
the second chapter, wherein it will be seen that 
he takes direct issue with Paul, the writer of the 
Gospel of John, the Westminster Catechism, and 
the church generally. 

17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, 
being alone. 

* * * 5{« * * * 

20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith 
without works is dead? 

******* 

24 Ye see then how that by works a man is 
justified, and not by faith only. 

25 Likewise also was not Rahab, the harlot, 
justified by works? * * * 

26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, 
so faith without works is dead also. 

But Paul, in particular, repeatedly taught ex- 
actly the contrary. Two instances are here quoted : 

Knowing that a man is not justified by the 
works of the law [the ten commandments], but by 
the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed 
in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the 
faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: 
for by the works of the law shall no flesh be jus- 
tified. (Gal. ii, 16.) 
18 



274 THE SAFE SIDE. 

For by grace are ye saved, through faith ; and 
that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God : 

Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephe- 
sians ii, 8, 9.) 

According to this, boasting of good acts is so 
objectionable that, rather than incur that danger, 
the individual would better not cultivate them, 
but base his expectations of salvation upon his in- 
voluntarily inherited ideas of Christ. Certainly, 
a man who has no other claim to goodness than 
his faith has nothing in his works to boast of, and 
the less that is said of them the better it will be 
for his reputation. 

Paul's Epistle to the Romans is chiefly devoted 
to two subjects: one, the admission of Gentiles, 
and the other, this question of justification by 
faith alone, which he establishes in chapters v, vi, 
ix, andx, and also in the third chapter of his Epis- 
tle to the Galatians. 

The answer to the thirty-third question in the 
Westminster Shorter Catechism is: 

Justification is an act of God's free grace, where- 
in he pardoneth all our sins and accepteth us as 
righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness 
of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone. 

It is also further explained in. a note that — 

Justification is the very hinge and pillar of Chris- 
tianity; and an error about justification is dan- 
gerous, like a crack in the foundation. Justifica- 
tion by Christ is a spring of the water of life; and 
to have the poison of corrupt doctrines cast into 
this spring is to destroy life. If it be asked, How 
can it stand with God's justice and holiness to 



FAITH. 275 

pronounce us innocent when we are guilty? this 
answers it : Christ having made satisfaction for our 
sins, now God may, in equity and justice, pro- 
nounce us righteous. 

The catechism gives the ten commandments in 
full and then instructs that those commands can- 
not be kept. 

Question 82. Is any man able perfectly to keep 
the commandments of God? 

Answer. No mere man since the fall is able in 
this life perfectly to keep the commandments of 
God, but doth daily break them in thought, word, 
and deed. 

A man's temptation and his disposition to re- 
sist are but partly measured by his natural reli- 
gious propensities. When, for instance, he has 
large self-esteem he will judge of things very 
mildly, and such teachings as the above give 
him a wide margin for interpretation as to how 
much of those commandments it is safe to ignore. 
The Christian system terrorizes with representa- 
tions of fictitious sins of its own creation, and, if 
the easy escape which it provides from the conse- 
quences of sin only covered its imaginary one, it 
would to that extent be harmless in such teachings. 
But the conceit of many leads them to lelf-indul- 
gence that carries them beyond those imaginary 
sins into others of which but for such teachings 
they would not have been guilty. 

In a retrospect of ourselves it is natural that 
we should judge of our character by a general sum- 
ming up of all our acts, good and bad; but the 



276 THE SAFE SIDE. 

fact that in so doing we partly offset the bad be- 
cause of its association with a large amount of 
that which is commendable greatly adds to the 
importance of obtaining a correct knowledge of 
what is commendable. A false standard of right 
and wrong will in this be a cause of dangerous 
self-ignorance and permit a corrupt man to com- 
placently rest in his abundant practice of fictitious 
virtues and useless ceremonies. 

Many people boast greatly of the ten command- 
ments, asserting that without the Bible we should 
never have had the ideas of right and wrong which 
they convey. Nevertheless, they teach us that we 
cannot keep those commandments, after which we 
are taught that in lieu of them we may be saved, 
so far as works are concerned, by performing those 
acts that involve the support of the priesthood. 
A careful examination of the exact things that we 
must do will show that those things cannot be 
done without the service of pastor or priest, and 
consequently without a proportionate contribution 
to his support. And it will also be found that 
it is only upon those acts requiring such service 
of pastor or priest that the church is exacting. 
Many of its false virtues consist in that which 
necessitates making use of those officers and many 
of its false sins in ignoring them. To those who 
will follow its false virtues, it is very indulgent as 
to their actual wrongdoings with their fellow men. 

The necessities of the situation oblige church- 
men to insist that a high sense of honor and moral- 



FAITH. 277 

ity will be the natural result of the practice of their 
sentimental requirements, and failure therein ex- 
poses the uselessness of such practices. For this 
reason church authorities will usually pass over 
in silence the dishonorable conduct of communi- 
cants rather than advertise their failure by trial 
and expulsion. 

On the other hand trials for heresy magnify the 
pretended importance of their doctrines and glo- 
rify them by the exhibition of a seemingly deli- 
cate sensibility to piety. Hence in such Qases 
churchmen are prompt and merciless. The men 
who condone offenses which religion is intended 
to prevent will fill the world with their disputes 
regarding conditions prevailing in a future ex- 
istence of which they know absolutely nothing. 
The Presbyterian church just now supplies a not- 
able illustration of this in its trial of Dr. Briggs 
for heresy and in its ignoring charges of fraud and 
perjury made against an equally well-known 
clergyman. These charges were revived and 
printed in the New York Su7i on or about March 
2, 1890. 

Keeping the Sabbath day as directed by the 
church is a virtue wholly within the system ; but 
those who comply with its directions therein are 
seldom disturbed by it in any dishonorable acts of 
which they may be guilty. The pecuniary inter- 
est of the church would be injured rather than ad- 
vanced by such discipline and it therefore silently 
ignores wrongs of the latter nature. In the fol- 



278 THE SAFE SIDE. 

lowing instructions we are directed to the church's 
chief source of pecuniary support. 

Question S6. What is faith in Jesus Christ? 

A. Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, 
whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for 
salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel. 

Q. 85. What doth God require of us, that we 
may escape his wrath and curse due to us for sin? 

A. To escape the wrath and curse of God due 
to us for sin, God requireth of us faith in Jesus 
Christ, repentance unto life, with the diligent use 
of all the outward means whereby Christ commu- 
nica^eth to us the benefits of redemption. 

Q. 88. What are the outward and ordinary 
means whereby Christ communicateth to us the 
benefits of redemption? 

A. The outward and ordinar)^ means whereby 
Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemp- 
tion are his ordinances, especially the word, sacra- 
ments, and prayer, all which are made effectual 
to the elect for salvation. 

Q. 89. How is the word made effectual to sal- 
vation ? 

A. The spirit of God maketh the reading, but 
especially the preaching, of the word an effectual 
means of convincing and converting sinners and 
of building them up in holiness and comfort, 
through faith, unto salvation. 

Audiences are as necessary for the support of 
churches as for the support of theaters; without 
them the priesthood's salaries would not be paid 
and the whole system would become extinct. How 
to secure audiences, therefore, became a question 
of the greatest magnitude and has gradually grown 
to be the chief one to which its efforts are directed. 
In these last several answers, attendance upon 



FAITH. 279 

church service is made to be of more importance 
than keeping the ten commandments. The church 
grants its absolution to those who fail to keep the 
latter, provided they will observe its ordinances, 
which it represents in substance to be attendance 
at church. It even claims that attendance to be 
the only exhibition of faith in Christ. 

The church thus teaches that which simply 
amounts to an exaltation of the priesthood, to 
which end devotion to Christ has always been a 
secondary matter. Not that any body of men 
within it necessarily deliberately adopted such a 
policy for personal ends. The church felt the 
pressure and involuntarily sought its own worldly 
welfare, in doing which it became diverted from 
the true object of religion and gradually centered 
all its discipline upon that which secures the pe- 
cuniary and social interest of those who make its 
doctrines. 

In Acts V, I, 2, 3, 4, 5, is recorded the fable of 
Ananias having been struck dead for withholding 
some of his property from the church by denying 
to Peter any knowledge of part of it. The gospel 
states that only a few weeks before Peter himself 
had lied by denying with oaths any knowledge of 
Christ (Mat. xxvi, 70, 72, 74). These two events 
are located near together as to time, but the au- 
thorship of them is separated by about two hun- 
dred years. Peter's denial was written at an early 
day by a more honest writer, v;ho, no doubt, be- 
lieved the tradition he was recordinof and was in- 



i?8o THE SAFE SIDE. 

tent upon exhibiting Christ as a prophet having- 
supernatural knowledge of all events attending his 
coming crucifixion. But the story of Ananias was 
written when two centuries had developed as nu- 
merous officers and as great personal interest in 
church property in proportion to numbers as exist 
to-day. These officers were alread)^ diverting the 
superstition that made their religion into channels 
that exalted themselves. Though representing 
Ananias to have been punished for lying, it is clear 
that the offense consisted in the effect of that par- 
ticular lie. 

In the case of Peter's triple denial of his Lord 
(as held in the church) punishment had no bear- 
ing upon the idea to be impressed upon the mind 
of the reader; hence there was no punishment. 
In the case of Ananias's denial and consequent 
withholding of part of his property, to show pun- 
ishment for so doing was the sole object of the 
story; hence that punishment Vv^as made as awful 
as possible. The inference to be drawn from 
these two accounts is that those ancient church 
authorities regarded their worldly interests as not 
only more sacred than Christ, but that it was the 
only thing in the system that was sacred. 

The catechism is necessarily in accord with the 
Thirty-nine Articles of Religion as given in the 
Episcopal Prayer Book, the latter adding in sub- 
stance (Art. xiii) that good works performed by 
an unbeliever " are not pleasant to God " because 
they do not spring from faith in Jesus Christ, 



FAITH. 281 

''^neither do they make men meet to receive grace ^'' and 
further stating that " we donbt not but they [the 
unbeliever's good works] have the nature of sin." 

Those articles have been prepared with extreme 
care and the phraseology was critically studied by 
large numbers of men who were particularly skilled 
in language. This fact gives a significance to 
the words *' we doubt not " that their ordinary use 
would not convey. If they really did not doubt, 
it was not necessary to make use of those words. 
Those men were carefully presenting their, to 
them, all-important articles of religion, the confid- 
ing, unquestioning, abounding belief in which is 
the burden of all their teachings. In others of 
those articles they had designated a lively faith as es- 
pecially desirable, and now they themselves studi- 
ously and weakly express an important article of 
that faith, which article is an unavoidable conclu- 
sion to the doctrine upon which Christianity is 
founded. If faith in Christ be indispensable for 
salvation, then the virtuous, upright, honorable 
conduct of those who repudiate him must be de- 
fined, and it must be defined as wicked or the 
only value in faith is lost. This service, though 
disagreeable, was insurmountable; it could not be 
shirked ; but the words " we doubt not " show that 
in their enforced labors those many ecclesiastics 
felt the shame they ought to have felt in the dis- 
graceful and wicked position which the logical 
necessities of their doctrines obliged them to take. 

What is religion for if it be not to make men 



282 THE SAFE SIDE. 

virtuous and honorable? If there were but one 
God there could be no such complications, but in 
ancient times there had been for two or three gen- 
erations a tradition among a very few ignorant 
men that a certain obscure man was also God, and 
it was to sustain the truth of that tradition that 
those men stultified themselves and decried and 
pronounced wicked the exact service for which 
God created the religious faculties. 

The circumstances that caused the promulga- 
tion of those articles of religion and the chain of 
circumstances that led to the deification of Christ 
were almost distinct from each other, there being 
but slight connection between the two. The last 
has been enumerated in the last part of Chap, x, 
while the former was the growth of time, they be- 
ing, as stated, but enforced explanations which 
have been rearranged from time to time as the 
necessities of the age demanded.. The divinity 
of Christ and the comfortable places of his minis- 
ters must stand or fall together, and history shows 
that the priesthood have never hesitated at any 
act of shame which by sustaining the one would 
equally sustain the other. 

A proclamation of rules and regulations, fol- 
lowed by a notice that they cannot be kept, is 
equivalent to granting a license for what might 
not otherwise have been thought of, and is, there- 
fore, worse than no proclamation at all. It is as 
though the park authorities had posted notices re- 
quiring visitors " To keep off the grass, to pluck 



FAITH. 283 

no flowers, to not stone the swans," and visitors 
had then been instructed by the park police that 
none could keep all those rules. Such a notice 
would be a license to pluck the flowers and would 
suggest stoning the swans to boys who otherwise 
might not have thought of so doing. Those rules 
also would command still less respect and be the 
more violated if they were encumbered with some 
that were useless and unnatural, such as " That 
visitors are not to admire anything belonging to 
others." And if these latter rules were supposed 
to be the only ones the authorities had in mind in 
noting that none could keep all the rules, such 
notice would none the less lead to violation of 
all the others. If, furthermore, the park police 
should instruct visitors that, instead of observing 
those rules of the higher authorities, it was only 
necessary to employ them (the police) in certain 
trifling service calling for fees, we would in this 
have an exact parallel with the Christian system 
as taught by the Westminster Catechism and the 
church generally. 

Every commandment that ought to be kept may 
be kept, and it is folly to obscure such with use- 
less and unnatural commandments that none obeys 
or is expected to obey. Resisting temptation 
requires an effort of the mind often involving 
intense mental labor. If the temptation is not 
resisted it will in all cases be an injury to the man 
himself or to somebody else. The reason for re- 
sisting is always because of the clearly recognized 



284 THE SAFE SIDE. 

evil consequences that will follow if the tempta- 
tion be yielded to. But those who believe v;\ jus- 
tification by faith will have less fear of the conse- 
quences of yielding to temptation and will have 
correspondingly less power to resist. 

Religious works are of a negative nature. They 
do not consist so much in what a man does as in 
what he resists doing. Wherein a man's natural 
disposition leads him to do his duty, he has no 
occasion for further incitement through religious 
motives. It is only w^here certain mental faculties 
are below what they should be, and consequently 
expose him to temptation, that he has chief cause 
to strengthen his weak powers b)^ a realization of 
the greater consequences that may follow his con- 
templated wrong than are apparent in this life 
alone. The exact point where religion is wanted 
is where there is temptation, and religious work con- 
sists in resistiiig temptation. To teach, therefore, that 
faith is superior to works is equivalent to teaching 
that it is better to believe in Christ than to resist 
temptation. It is equivalent to teaching that a 
man may ruin his neighbor and escape all conse- 
quences through repentance unto life and faith in 
Christ. The church does teach this. 

Only wrong acts — that is to say, wTong works — 
cause evil consequences and mental pain. If it 
could be possible that for a time there should be a 
total failure of a facult}' — for instance, the faculty 
of honor — such temporary suspension would make 
no difference either to others or to ourselves pro- 



FAITH. 285 

vided that during- that time we committed no act 
calling up that faculty. Or, on the other hand, if 
we are tempted to violate our honor, but finally 
resist the temptation, that faculty will have done 
its duty even though our minds long dwelt upon 
the question of doing an act that honor required 
we should not do. The temptation comes through 
a desire to gratify other faculties, which, in their 
respective branches, are also important; honoris 
simply a check upon those faculties when their ex- 
ercise or gratification trenches upon the rights of 
others, and, if at such times those rights are duly 
respected and protected, the faculty of honor will 
have done the exact service for which it was cre- 
ated. The temptation, therefore, is not unnatural, 
nor always seriously reprehensible, and, if resisted, 
no sin will have been committed; but, on the con- 
trary, those are the very acts that are especially 
designated as good. We admire them and call 
them good because of the self-control or sacrifices 
that were necessary to perform them. Such works 
are religious works, and there is no object in hav- 
ing the religious faculties, except to insure their 
performance. 

The church defines religion to be but a senti- 
ment, a mere matter of belief, and represents its 
outward manifestation to consist in ceremonies 
presided over by those who hold themselves up to 
be divinely appointed agents of God; while the 
all-important duties of the religious faculties are 
left to a simple inference that those duties are 



286 THE SAFE SIDE. 

inseparable from a belief in Jesus Christ. The 
Christian system thus becomes a license to wrong- 
doing because it substitutes an easy thing to do 
in place of that which it is hard to do and because 
it addresses itself to that which is to be done 
after the wrong is committed rather than before. 
Repentance unto life and faith in Christ are its 
panacea for all moral evils in the past and an 
implied preventive for all in the future; and 
even that simple recipe is narrowed by defining 
such repentance and faith as consisting in 
church attendance and compliance with its cere- 
monies. There has always been a consideration, 
a quid pro quo, involved in accepting this license. 
At first it consisted in gratifying the ambition 
of Jesus, but since his time that consideration 
consists in the consequent pandering to the love 
of power and social glories of his ministers. 

But when James wrote his epistle the latter in- 
terest had not as yet been developed. The few 
believers were still intent upon the coming of ^the 
kingdom of heaven which was daily expected and 
v/ere held by that only. James's opinions upon 
faith were natural, as his opinions of the Gentiles 
were local, and both conflicted with the interest of 
the church. The structure had not sufficiently 
progressed to expose these faults of his; at least 
he did not see them and he had to be suppressed. 
He would have ruined all if he had been permitted 
to run on as he did, and he was accordingly sharply 
cut off in the midst of his epistle without the 



FAITH. 287 

courtesy of annexing the usual benediction. How 
much is suppressed we can never know, but we 
can plainly see the cause of that suppression and 
can see that it was done in the interest of the an- 
cient hierarchy, and not in the interest of religion. 

But, on the other hand, if a man can be saved 
by good works alone, if he can escape punishment 
simply because he has done nothing calling for 
punishment, then there is no necessity for believ- 
ing in Christ; or, as Paul put it, "Then Christ is 
dead in vain." Or, if both good works and faith 
in Christ are necessary for salvation, then is faith 
simply an added burden to doubters who could 
have been good without it ; and, in either case, how 
is Christ a savior? If faith partially wipes out 
wickedness and good works complete the process, 
then who is to draw the dividing line and show the 
proportion which each should bear to the other? 

That little ambition of Jesus, to be believed to 
be the Messiah whose coming John the Baptist 
proclaimed, has cost the world a vast deal of 
trouble. There must be a consideration for that 
belief which he demanded or there is no object in 
believing. He himself is represented to have 
promised everything if they would believe his as- 
sertion, and the church, from very necessity, has 
been obliged to promise as much and make faith 
a virtue so great as to be an offset against wicked- 
ness. There can be no half-way work about it; if 
belief in Jesus Christ cancels any wickedness, it 
cancels all. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 



THE various steps in the progress of the church 
came in such natural order that they can be 
nearly as well traced in the usual working of the 
mind as they could have been in history. A con- 
nected account of those steps is not supplied by 
history, for the reason that the difficulties by which 
the church was surrounded and the compromises 
that followed were such as to make their publica- 
tion seriously objectionable. Particularly is this 
the case with the circumstances that led to the pro- 
duction of the Fourth Gospel. 

The original and all-important organization of 
the church was at first of but a local nature, con- 
sisting mostly in regulations with regard to the 
care and disposition of the common property ; but 
the enforced departure of many from Judea led 
to the formation of colonies in other countries. 
Those colonies grew in wealth and numbers, and 
each naturally established branches in neighboring 
towns and cities. Necessarily, the organization 
in each colony became more complex and the 
powers of the chief officer (early called a bishop) 
increased. When time had brought forth a curi- 
osity to know the personal history of Jesus, none 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 289 

would be so much interested in writing it as the 
various leaders of those colonies, and probably- 
most of the uncanonical gospels were written or 
caused to be written by them. Each colony would 
then have its own gospel, which, in a few gener- 
ations, would become sanctified in the minds of its 
members as the inspired word of their already 
long-dead founder. Thus those somewhat widely 
scattered colonies, each under the direction of an 
autocrat of its own and teaching its own ideas as 
to the nature of Christ, together with other at- 
tending theories, created a divergence of doctrines 
within the church greater than has ever existed 
since. 

When one hundred and fifty years had passed 
since the crucifixion, some of those colonies had 
grown to great wealth and their bishops to great 
power, a power and social position so desirable as 
to raise an interest in Christianity much more in- 
tense than could be produced by religion alone. 
Naturall}^, those positions drew in a more intelli- 
gent class of men, and, under their more critical 
eyes, the conflict in the sentiments of the various 
colonies would be more serious. Those varying 
views annulled one another, and, if the church 
and the power of the leaders were to be further 
augmented or even its acquired power assured, its 
organization must be extended, so as to embrace 
all the colonies and place them under one head. 
There could be no difference of opinion as to the 
advisability of this step; nevertheless there was 
19 



290 THE SAFE SIDE. 

a great difficulty to be overcome in bringing it 
about. That difficulty lay in the pride of the 
bishop of each colony. Even if there were a few 
who did not aspire to be the chosen head, there 
was none who would not feel averse to parting with 
his independence and submitting to a rival. This 
and the attachment of each colony to its own gos- 
pel and doctrines were, necessarily, two great ob- 
stacles in the way of consolidation. They were so 
serious that a complete unity never was attained ; 
but most of those colonies did unite, and it is clear 
that their consolidation was secured, as is usual in 
all such cases, by a compromise. 

That there should be a gospel upon which the 
whole church should unite is a simple idea that 
would suggest itself to every churchman; but that 
there should be more than one such gospel is an 
enlargement of that idea that only circumstances 
could have suggested, and when once raised it 
would naturally attach itself to the idea of having 
a gospel from each of the twelve apostles. But 
the church adopted neither. Its adoption of the 
four gospels was a compromise with the leaders of 
the most influential colonies. Evidently, three 
stubborn, prominent bishops would not yield, and 
it was finally agreed to include the gospel of each 
with certain interpolations and that unitedly they 
should write a new gospel, with a view to cover- 
ing the questions and objections that time had ex- 
posed, which objections could not be met by any 
gospel then extant. 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 29I 

Nor is the origin of the four gospels, as thus 
traced through the workings of the human mind, 
wholly unhistorical. The only important part 
that is hypothetical is that those four gospels were 
adopted under a compromise and that those bishops 
themselves wrote the Fourth Gospel or caused it to 
be written. Near the end of the second century, 
there was a time, as narrow as fifteen and possibly 
ten years, before which the Fourth Gospel and the 
association of the four gospels were unknown and 
after which they were widely known. Within 
that short era not only was this great change made, 
but the church was consolidated under the leader- 
ship of the bishop of Rome, though of those im- 
portant events the church gives us no account. 
That it should be silent about those compromises 
is natural and particularly is it natural that it 
should, to the full extent of its power, obscure its 
own authorship of the Fourth Gospel. 

The wide difference that now exists in our ideas 
of the canonical and tmcanonical gospels has been 
the growth of time. Canonization, as now under- 
stood, was an idea those bishops had not advanced 
to. The Christian ideas both as to the extreme 
sacredness of the person of Christ and the sacred- 
ness of the gospels were unknown in the lifetime 
of the one or of the authors of the other. In each 
instance, their generation had to pass away before 
that sacredness could become a part of Christian 
faith. Time was needed to obscure their gross 
outlines and permit the imagination to build up 



292 THE SAFE SIDE. 

ideas of sanctity and venerableness of person that 
were not possible with their contemporaries. It 
had been the same with the apostles, who looked 
upon Jesus as only a prophet, and it is doubtful if 
there was a man of his time remaining on the earth 
when the doctrine was advanced that he was equal 
with God. 

So with the four gospels. Their disagreements, 
as, for instance, the two genealogies of Jesus, show 
that when those bishops canonized them they did not 
anticipate the extremely sacred character which 
time would attach to each word. It is doubtful if 
they did more than to indorse those four and pro- 
nounce them to be the most reliable, but not nec- 
essarily strictly accurate, gospels. The spirit with 
which they were put forth did not require perfect 
agreement, except upon the points the bishops 
strove to build up ; and, though they claimed divine 
inspiration, their wildest flights of fancy could not 
have anticipated the degree of veneration and awe 
with which those gospels came to be regarded in 
after ages. 

If Jesus had been all that was claimed for him, 
his utterances would never have raised difficulties 
calling for compromises and phenomenal gospels. 
On the contrary, time would more and more have 
confirmed his divine wisdom by making it mani- 
fest that he had foreseen and protected the church 
from troubles that would otherwise beset it in later 
times. Coming generations would find themselves 
but overtaking his ideas, instead of discovering 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 293 

that they were only adapted to the narrow intellect 
of the few followers of his time. 

But when, after one hundred and fifty years had 
passed since the crucifixion and the bishops assem- 
bled to reconcile their various gospels, this fact 
was conspicuous, that Jesus had not foreseen the 
condition the church was then in, but that, on the 
contrar)^ his sayings had created tlieir most serious 
difficulties, those bishops would not necessarily be 
influenced by this and abandon the church. What- 
ever may have been the motives which originally 
drew them into that service, there would by that 
time have been an accumulation of interest foreign 
to religion that would hold them superior to all 
other considerations. When a ship is floated into 
a dock and the water is drawn off, there are blocks 
and stays that continue to support the ship even 
more rigidly than when floating in the water. So 
with Christianity, the ideas of Jesus and the apos- 
tles, that originally floated it, had long since been 
drained away, but only to leave it far more firmly 
upheld in the vast personal interest of its many 
officers. 

The deliberations, therefore, of those men were 
wholly with reference to defeating their opponents, 
to supporting their own wishes, and to their con- 
tinuance in office, and were not with reference to 
getting at the exact truth as to the divinity of 
Christ. That was something they were deter- 
mined to sustain under any and all circumstances, 
and, if his words did not meet the condition of 



294 THE SAFE SIDE. 

their times, they must be made to do so. Under 
a general organization they would have the power 
to enforce the support of their own doctrines and 
gospels, and that power was worth the sacrifices 
made to obtain it. Necessarily, therefore, those 
bishops would exercise that power immediately 
after securing it. Consequently the union of the 
Church under one head, the issuing of its author- 
ized gospels, and the suppression of all other 
writings seriously conflicting with them would be 
three events that would naturally occur at about 
the same time, the first of the three being neces- 
sary to the accomplishment of the other two. 

All three of these events were taking place in 
the latter part of the second century. The suprem- 
acy of the Church of Rome was then established; 
the four gospels suddenly sprang into existence, 
and many gospels and other writings known to 
have been in use at that time promptly disappeared. 
Many of those works were important . and would 
have thrown light upon the matter in the four 
gospels if there had been no interest in conflict with 
them. From the time of this more perfect organ- 
ization the preservation of those works ought to 
have been assured, if the truth was all that was 
desired, but that which ought to have saved them 
insured their destruction. Naturally the Church 
would suppress accounts of these suppressions, but 
failed to do so in the one important instance before 
referred to. The Gospel of Peter should have 
stood higher with them than any other, but he 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 295 

represented Christianity to be for the Jews only 
and his gospel was destroyed. It will be noticed 
also that this was taking- place about the year 190. 

It is well understood in our own time that im- 
portant public measures are carried out, not for 
the glory of the individual, but for the public 
good. Men attain distinction by the ability they 
exhibit in the service of the people, and, instead 
of receiving honors for simply striving to advance 
their own positions, they are brought into discredit 
by so doing. 

But this has not always been so. In ancient 
times those in authority often made wars simply 
because they had the power to do so and used it 
for their own renown. The people would submit 
to their rulers without looking into the motives 
that governed them. The followers of Jesus pro- 
claimed him to be the expected Christ, and he 
promised safety from horrors of his own invention 
to all Jews who would believe that he was the 
Messiah he said he was. But no reason was given 
why believing in him should be necessary. He 
had no other object than to gratify his own ambi- 
tion and his followers were too ignorant to ask for 
any such reason. But the importance of a reason 
for Christ's appearance upon earth, and also for 
believing in him, became apparent as more 
thoughtful men joined his followers. Those 
bishops had progressed far enough to see this, and 
they met those questions by originating that which 
gave to Jesus the title of " savior. " He had come 



296 THE SAFE SIDE. 

to save the world and it was necessary to believe 
in him in order to be saved. But this led to an 
equally troublesome question, How was the world 
lost? What were the circumstances that made 
such an extreme measure necessary? This ques- 
tion had not as yet penetrated the minds of those 
churchmen, and hence they made no attempt to 
solve it. Such explanation as Christianity gives 
in the fable of the atonement is unsupported by 
the four gospels. 

Questions of this character would naturally em- 
barrass those bishops more than any other, for 
there could be nothing in the original gospels to 
answer them. They could not have been raised 
but for the failure of Christ's prediction of the 
coming of the kingdom of heaven, and it had taken 
the intervening time to make that failure mani- 
fest. In their solution, much could be done by a 
few interpolations and eliminations in the most 
acceptable gospels, but the objects to be accom- 
plished were too numerous and important to be 
allowed to rest only on such slight alterations. 
There should be at least one gospel in which such 
new explanations as they w^ould make could be 
clearly stated. 

Those church officers greatly needed such a gos- 
pel as the Fourth Gospel, and all the facts and 
attending circumstances are confirmatory of the 
proposition here made, that they themselves caused 
it to be written. It was unknown before the time 
mentioned. The first knowledge we have of it is 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 297 

that it was coupled with the other gospels and was 
issued as an authorized gospel of the church. It 
represents its author to be the Apostle John, whom 
Jesus loved, and hence to deny his authorship was 
to deny the gospel itself. This, taken in connec- 
tion with the certainty of its late appearance, is 
now a source of much embarrassment to the 
Church. Its improved and widely different style 
and the many important doctrines dependent upon 
it have caused much to be written in efforts to sus- 
tain it. It is the favorite gospel, and well it may 
be, for it was written exclusively in the interest 
of those supported by the adherents of the church. 

The author of Supernatural Religion has given 
all the evidence bearing upon the authorship of 
the Fourth Gospel, about one-third of his second 
volume being devoted to that subject. He proves 
conclusively that it was not only written at a very 
late date, certainly after the time of Justin Martyr, 
but that its author was undoubtedly a stranger in 
Judea. He shows, for instance, that the writer 
made two or three geographical errors, alludes to 
certain Jewish customs as your customs, and men- 
tions the Jeivs in a manner and with a spirit that 
would have been hardly possible with the Apostle 
John. He states that " the Jews are represented 
as continually in virulent opposition to Jesus; 
they are not spoken of as the favored people of 
God, but are denounced as children of the devil." 

" The Apocalypse is also said to have been writ- 
ten by the Apostle John. The contrast between 



298 THE SAFE SIDE. 

it and the Fourth Gospel is so great that no can- 
did man can believe they are both by the same 
author. " He (the author of Supernatural Religion) 
further states that- the contrast in the original 
Greek is much greater than it appears in English. 
He says that 

The external evidence that the Apostle John 
wrote the Apocalypse is more ancient than that 
for the authorship of any book of the New Testa- 
ment, excepting some of the Epistles of Paul, 
and there is probably not another work in the New 
Testament the precise date of the composition of 
which (A. D. 68, 69), within a few weeks, can be 
so positively affirmed. 

Christian writers have given this general knowl- 
edge of the Fourth Gospel at the end of the second 
century as an argument in favor of its earlier pro- 
duction. One writer,^ as an illustration, says that 
the first account we have of Thebes is a statement 
in Homer that " It could send a hundred armies 
from its hundred gates," but none would assume 
that that was the beginning of Thebes. So, he 
argues, with the Fourth Gospel, the general knowl- 
edge of it at that time indicates an extended pre- 
ceding existence. 

But the nature of this argument shows the pov- 
erty of evidence of an earlier appearance. It con- 
tains an admission of the absence of a previous 
knowledge of it, while its sudden widely extended 
appearance is not only accounted for in the hy- 

' Norton's Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels. 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 299 

pothesis just given, but is important evidence con- 
firmatory of it. 

The following few extracts are taken from 
Strauss's examination of this gospel:' 

In the first three gospels, Jesus closely adapts 
his teachings to the necessities of his shepherdless 
people, contrasting, at one time, the corrupt insti- 
tutions of the Pharisees with the moral and reli- 
gious precepts of the Mosaic law ; at another the 
carnal messianic hopes of the age with the purely 
spiritual nature of his kingdom and the conditions 
of entrance therein. In the Fourth Gospel, on 
the contrary, he is perpetually dilating, and often 
in a barren, speculative manner, on the doctrine 
of his person and higher nature; so that, in oppo- 
sition to the diversified doctrinal and practical ma- 
terials of the synoptical discourses, we have in 
John a one-sided dogmatism. 

******* 

But according to the above supposition [not 
quoted], the fourth evangelist came as a gleaner 
after the synoptists. Now it is certain that all the 
discourses of Jesus having a practical tendency 
had not been preserved by them ; hence, that the 
former has almost invariably avoided giving any 
relic of such discourses can only be explained by 
his preference for the dogmatic and speculative 
vein, a preference which must have had both an 
objective and subjective source, the necessities of 
his time and circumstances and the bent of his 
own mind. This is admitted even by critics who 
are favorable to the authenticity of the Fourth 
Gospel, with the reservation that that preference 
betrays itself only negatively, by omission, not 
positively, by addition. 



Life of Jesus, by Dr. David Friedrich Strauss. 



300 THE SAFE SIDE. 

The style furnishes no guidance, for this is 
everywhere the same and is admitted to be the 
evangelist's own ; neither does the sense, for in it 
also there is no essential difference whether the 
evangelist speaks in his own name or in that of 
Jesus. Where, then, is the guarantee that the 
discourses of Jesus are not, as the author of the 
Probabilia maintains, free inventions of the fourth 
evangelist? 

We, therefore, hold it to be established that the 
discourses of Jesus in John's gospel are mainly free 
compositions of the evangelist; but we have ad- 
mitted that he has culled several sayings of Jesus 
from an authentic tradition, and hence we do not 
extend this proposition to those passages which 
are countenanced by parallels in the synoptic gos- 
pels. In these compilations w^e have an example 
of the vicissitudes which befall discourses that are 
preserved only in the memory of a second party. 
Se veered from their original connection and broken 
up into smaller and smaller fragments, they pre- 
sent when reassembled the appearance of a mosaic, 
in which the connection of the parts is a purely 
external one and every transition an artificial 
juncture. The discourses of Jesus in John present 
just the opposite appearance. Their gradual tran- 
sition, only rendered occasionally obscure by the 
mystical depths of meaning in which they lie — 
transitions in which one thought develops itself 
out of another and a succeeding proposition is fre- 
quently but an explanatory amplification of the 
preceding — is indicative of a pliable, unresisting 
mass, such as is never presented to a writer by the 
traditional sayings of another, but such as pro- 
ceeds from the stores of his own thought, which 
he molds according to his will. For this reason, 
the contributions of tradition to these stores of 
thought (apart from the sayings which are also 
found in the earlier gospels) were not so likely to 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 301 

have been particular, independent dicta of Jesus 
as, rather, certain ideas which formed the basis of 
many of his discourses and which were modified 
and developed according to the bent of a mind of 
Alexandrian or Greek culture. Such are the cor- 
relative ideas of father and son^ light and darkfiess^ 
life and deaths abore and beneath^ flesh and spirit; also 
some symbolical expressions, as bread of life ^ water 
of life. These and a few other ideas, variously 
combined by an ingenious author, compose the 
bulk of the discourses attributed to Jesus by John, 
a certain uniformity necessarily attending this ele- 
mental simplicity. 

M. Renan, on the other hand, treats all the gos- 
pels as equally genuine; but I infer that his con- 
cessions are hypothetical, for the reason that he 
passes the weakest points of those gospels without 
giving reasons for those unnecessary concessions. 
These concessions are seemingly indifferently 
made in the first few lines of the first chapter of 
his Life of Christ. They were unimportant in 
the position he had taken and he waives them 
with the least trouble to himself. As elsewhere 
stated, if all the gospels were perfect in their unity 
and written under the dictation of Jesus himself, 
it would still be but an imperceptible advance in 
proving that Jesus was what the church represents 
him to be. The faith of Christians and their ideas 
of the gospels are inherited, and it is a strong ar- 
gument in undeceiving them to show the evidence 
of the unreliability of those gospels. In that field 
only is the question of their authenticity impor- 
tant; but that field is a wide one and the material 
M. Renan supplies therein will be worth more to 



302 THE SAFE SIDE. 

the priesthood than his theories to the contrary. 
Those theories and so-called concessions show the 
author to have still been more of a believer in the 
Christian system than an unbeliever, and it is 
doubtful if the Christian world would have ob- 
jected so much to his work if it were not that it 
was worth more to them to represent his ad- 
missions as the enforced concessions of a learned 
agnostic than to let them rest as the simple state- 
ments of a Christian. 

The various differences between the synoptic 
gospels and the Fourth Gospel betray the thoughts 
of those who composed it, as well as the difficul- 
ties they had to overcome. Those differences 
show what the synoptics did not contain, and an 
examination will show that without the changes 
then made there was nothing upon which to build 
a religion. The entire Christian systeiri stands upon 
the gospel which those bishops then originated and the 
few interpolations they made in the other gospels. What 
their eliminations were we can never know, but 
those interpolations are, in each instance, con- 
densed in a few words and are usually in direct 
conflict with the other matter in those gospels. A 
very important item is sharply stated in a few 
words, such as could be inserted at the bottom or 
top of a manuscript or interlined at some conven- 
ient place or substituted in place of an erasure. 
The short and explicit characteristic of those inter- 
polations is in sharp contrast with the usual style 
of the New Testament. 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 303 

Each one of those alterations was to cover ob- 
jections drawn out by the more intelligent criti- 
cism of those later times. Naturally the doctrines 
of the church would be supposed to be founded 
upon the gospels; but those doctrines were, as 
stated, simply necessary explanations, and, instead 
of being founded upon the gospels, the gospels 
were made to conform to them. This was the 
work of the Fourth Gospel, the others being sim- 
ply made, as far as possible, to agree with it. The 
evident anxiety of the writer of that gospel to rep- 
resent John the Baptist as acknowledging Jesus 
to be the Christ has already been shown, as also 
the desire to add much needed testimony that 
Jesus died upon the cross, which it does through 
an inconsistent story that admitted of drawing in 
the words he was dead already^ and by representing 
that he was pierced in the side, and by referring 
to the wound after the resurrection. 

The words " Son of God " are used but little in 
the synoptic gospels and may not have been in the 
original at all. In the time of Christ they simply 
meant a religious person.' Those gospels did not 
state with sufficient clearness the nature of the 
divine attributes of Christ. The consequence was 
that at an early day there began to be differences 
of opinion and various theories advanced as to the 
relative position he bore to God. Before the 
Fourth Gospel was written, " the Ebionites, and 
possibly the Nazarenes of Jerusalem, revered Jesus 
^Waite's History of Christianity. 



'304 THE SAFE SIDE. 

as the greatest of. the prophets, endowed with su- 
pernatural power, but rejected his divine perfec- 
tion as the Son of God." ' This is consistent with 
the slight use of those words in the synoptic gos- 
pels and is suggestive also of their having been 
inserted at a later date. The great Arian contro- 
versy in the time of Constantine was upon this 
question and it has been revived in our time. 

To represent that Christ came to save all nations, 
to make it appear that the Baptist acknowledged 
Christ, to show forth Jesus as equal with God, and 
to deify faith were evidently the greatly desired 
ends to be accomplished through, the Fourth 
Gospel. It was important to suppress the very 
existence of the second question, but its testimony 
on that point is strongly addressed to a party the 
existence of which they have since hidden from 
us. We see there was such a question as we see 
the shadow of an unseen object. The author was 
deficient in the art of story-telling and his original 
accounts are therefore weaker than they need be. 
The desired interested testimony is, as usual in 
such cases, too promptly set forth, the first five 
chapters covering all the most important points ; 
otherwise this gospel was no doubt made up from 
other gospels and writings of those times, but re- 
arranged in accordance with the doctrines which 
the church wished to promulgate. The seemingly 
somewhat better intelligence of the author may 
be owing to the fact that he wrote in the light of 
^ Gibbon. 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. , 305 

one hundred and fifty or one hundred and sixty 
years' experience of the church. 

Upon the great question as to how much divine 
power Jesus possessed, this gospel has much to 
say, and as far as was in its power it establishes his 
equality with God. It is first clearly brought 
forward in the fifth chapter, as follows: 

18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill 
him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, 
but said also, that God was his Father, making 
himself equal with God. 

19 Then answered Jesus, and said tmto them, 
Veril}^, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do 
nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father 
do: for what things soever he doeth, these also 
doeth the Son likewise. 

******** 

22 For the Father judgeth no man; but hath 
committed all judgment unto the Son: 

23 That all men should honor the Son, even as 
they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the 
Son, honoreth not the Father which hath sent 
him. 

The direct application of these words to the con- 
troversy then going on shows the thoughts that 
actuated its author or rather the council that di- 
rected its author. The same assertion is repeated 
throughout the work, and so far as it is concerned 
it turns to the man Jesus that feeling which we 
should have for God only. 

One of the most ruinous things exposed by the 

synoptic gospels was the fact that the ideas of 

Jesus did not extend beyond Judea and the Jews. 

A few of the numerous quotations showing this 

20 



306 THE SAFE SIDE. 

have been given. They were too voluminous and 
probably too well known to be suppressed. This, 
however, is abundantly covered in their own 
gospel, while in the synoptics those writers con- 
tented themselves with the implication that 
Christ's words at the time of his crucifixion were 
more important than they had been on former oc- 
casions. They interpolate a very few words in 
that part of those gospels which is in sharp conflict 
with his previous teachings. The most marked 
examples of this are in Mark, as follows: 

XIII. 

lo And the gospel must first be published 
among all nations. 

XVI. 

15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the 
world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 

16 He that believeth and is baptized, shall be 
saved ; but he that believeth not, shall be damned. 

Reference to those chapters will show that in 
each instance those verses are wholly disconnected 
from the matter in the verses w^hich precede 
and follow them. The first-quoted verse, in 
particular, is a palpable break in the words of 
Christ. It not only does not make sense with the 
matter it is found with, but the spirit of it is the 
opposite from that of the accompanying verses. 
The two verses first quoted are intended to coun- 
teract in the fewest possible words the Jewish ex- 
clusiveness of the previous utterances of Christ. 
The last verse expresses with equal conciseness a 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 307 

point that experience had shown it was desirable 
to make. Salvation was promised from the first 
to all who would believe in Jesus Christ, but 
damnation to those who did not believe had not 
been set forth with sufficient clearness. Their 
fears could only be acted upon through the latter, 
without which very many might be indifferent 
whom terror would otherwise drive into the 
church. Hence the assertion that unbelievers 
would be damned became coupled with the prom- 
ise of salvation to those who believed and was ex- 
clusively the work of those who originated the 
Fourth Gospel. The following words are often 
quoted and are looked upon by believers as an ex- 
hibition of love. But, if true, it was a terrible 
doctrine to promulgate to an unbelieving world, 
and terror was the feeling which they were in- 
tended to produce. They are in the third chapter 
and are as follows : 

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave 
his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth 
in him, should not perish, but have everlasting 
life. 

18 He that believeth on him, is not condemned; 
but he that believeth not, is condemned already, 
because he hath not believed in the name of the 
only begotten Son of God. 

Also in the eighth chapter, 24th verse, Jesus is 
made to say: 

For if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die 
in your sins. 



308 THE SAFE SIDE. 

And again, xiv, 6 : "No man cometh unto the 
Father, but by me. " 

Notice, also, that in the last quoted verse from 
Mark baptism was made a sine qica non to salvation. 
This also was a new doctrine. Even at that early 
day, the church had discovered that a believer 
should not be allowed to be such undemonstratively 
at home. They therefore made it a requirement 
that, in addition to faith, there must also be bap- 
tism, a ceremony that could be performed only by 
officers of the church, who could, consequently, 
dictate the conditions under which that service 
should be rendered. 

In Matt. XV, 24, Jesus states in language that 

cannot be misunderstood that he was "not sent 

but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel," ' 

and his instructions to his disciples in Matt, x, 5, 

6, are equally concise and clear. But between 

these two accounts there is an interpolation, xii, 

21. The remaining instances in Matthew are 

xxiv, 14, xxvi, 13, and xxviii, 19. The last verse 

is as follows : 

Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing 
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Ghost. 

If in the place of all nations the words had origi- 
nally been the Jews, they would not have been per- 

^ Much is said about the good construction of the lan- 
guage of the Bible, but surely this language in Matthew 
really says the reverse of what it means when it says : "I 
am not sent but unto the lost sheep," which would mean 
that he was sent to others besides them. 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 309 

mitted to so remain. The whole verse, however, 
is probably an interpolation, ns it contains the de- 
sired admonition to be baptized and that it be 
done in the name of the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost, a direction that had grown out of 
the contention with the followers of John the 
Baptist. 

The only instance in Luke where the Gentiles 
are included is in the thirty-second verse of the 
second chapter, but the word Gentiles was probably 
originally Jews, whom the same verse designates 
2.^ thy people. The words are: 

A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of 
thy people Israel. 

The Fourth Gospel endeavors to make the career 
of Jesus as many years long as the others do weeks 
by representing his attendance at several pass- 
overs, which occurred but once a year, and also by 
dragging in the words " Thou art not yet fifty 
years old" (viii, 57), it having been stated in the 
other gospels that he was about thirty years old at 
his baptism. His taking possession of the temple 
is represented to have been during the first of his 
several pretended visits to the passover, and thus 
the one act that more than any other caused his 
crucifixion is disconnected from that event as 
much as possible. This important variation is 
inserted in the second chapter. 

It omits the account of taking the ass in en- 
tering Jerusalem, christianizes the character of 
Jesus, and omits all his upbraidings and other- 



310 THE SAFE SIDE. 

wise modifies the accounts of him, even to omit- 
ting the word " hand" in dipping into the dish at 
the last supper. (Matt, xxvi, 23; John xiii, 26.) 
It omits Christ's characteristic expression, "He 
that hath ears to hear, let him hear." Every dif- 
ference, whether in adding or omitting, points the 
same way and all were of a nature to obscure the 
truth in the interest of those bishops. On the 
other hand, the questions that had been troubling 
the church at that time could not have arisen if this 
gospel had previously existed. 

Reverting to Christ's Jewish exclusiveness, one 
instance requires more attention than it has re- 
ceived. In Matthew x, 5, 6, he says: 

Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into 
any city of the Samaritans enter ye not. 

But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of 
Israel. 

The Samaritans were neighbors of the Jews and 
had nearly the same religion, the chief or only 
difference being that they had a temple of their 
own and revered Mount Gerizim as the Jews did 
Mount Zion. They were bitterly hated by the 
Jews, as is common with rival and similar bodies. 
This passage shows that Jesus fally sympathized 
with his countrymen in that local feeling. In 
this he was human, and not at all like a god. If 
the Samaritans were excluded from salvation, 
what could be said for those distant Gentile cities 
where the church was mostly domiciled in those 
later times? Such a record as this was almost 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 3II 

ruinous to the Church, and it was indispensable 
that it be counteracted by a full and emphatic 
statement of an opposite nature. 

It was for this, no doubt, that the incident of 
the woman at Jacob's well was inserted in the 
fourth chapter of the bishops' gospel, which in- 
cident must have been a creation of their own. It 
filled the double purpose of representing Jesus as 
making no discrimination against the Samaritans, 
and, consequently, none against the people of any 
country. It is too inconsistent with the synoptic 
gospels, too much in the interest of its authors, 
and first brought out at far too late a date to be 
authentic. Furthermore, if this account be true, 
then the New Testament represents Jesus, when 
disposing of food and drink for the soul, to have 
directed his disciples not to enter into any city of 
the Samaritans; but, when he wanted food and 
drink for the body, he sent those disciples into a 
Samaritan city for the one and solicited the other 
from a Samaritan woman, who taunted him, being 
a Jew, for having done so. 

Strauss states that this incident is unhistorical 
and shows it to be an exact parallel with the Old 
Testament account of Eliezer and Rebekah at the 
same well. He says : 

Thus the interview of Jesus with the woman of 
Samaria is only a poetical representation of his 
ministry among the Samaritans narrated in the 
sequel, and this is itself a legendary prelude to 
the propagation of the gospel in Samaria after the 
death of Jesus. 



312 THE SAFE SIDE. 

It may be of some interest to the reader to 
note, in passing, why it is that, considering how 
numerous the Jewsare,there should be no Samaria 
tans in our day, as they were quite the same peo^ 
pie. The explanation for this is that scarcely five 
hundred years after this time they were exter- 
minated, or nearly so, by Christians for refusing 
to accept the Christian religion. The Emperor 
Justinian would not tolerate even silent unbelief. 
Suspected persons were subjected to an inquisi- 
torial examination and were given the alternative 
of conversion and baptism or banishment. This 
hard alternative was presented to the vSamaritans. 
But belief in Christ was impossible with them. 
To worship him would seem as sacrilegious as to 
worship an image, for they regarded the divinity 
in each case as the work of man. They were too 
honest to pretend to comply and too manl)^ to 
tamely submit. To resist the officers sent to en- 
force the emperor's command was necessarily 
rebellion, and Christian writers refer to that re- 
bellion and the attending destruction as the sole 
cause for their subsequent misfortunes, the cause 
for that rebellion not being always mentioned by 
them. Even Gibbon says that "under the stand- 
ard of a desperate leader they rose in arms and 
retaliated their wrongs on the lives, the property, 
and the temples of a defenseless people." But no 
people were ever given a more unjust and cruel 
alternative, and in the rebellion they chose they 
could not have been otherwise than on the defen- 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 313 

sive. They risked death and slaver}^ in defense 
of their homes and the right to worship the one 
and only God. 

They must have fought heroically, for 100,000 
government troops were killed as against 20,000 
killed of their own number, and the remainder — 
20,000 more — were sold into far distant slavery in 
Persia and India. A writer in the Biblical Cyclo- 
paedia, edited by Mr. McClintock and Mr. Strong, 
relates a few instances where a small body of 
Samaritans were subsequently mentioned in his- 
tory as still being in their own country, and prob- 
ably a few did escape or succeeded in after times 
in returning to their old homes. The same writer 
states that as late as 1872 there were still dwelling 
at the foot of Mount Gerizim 135 Samaritans, 80 
of whom were males. He represents them to have 
been; in personal appearance, much superior to 
the people in the country about, being tall, well 
formed, and intelligent. 

We honor the heroes who have bravely fought 
in battles and survived, but too soon forget the 
still greater heroes who gave their lives in those 
battles. So with the Samaritans. The Jews have 
come down to us through ages of persecution, but 
the Samaritans died at the point where heroes 
died, at that point where life could have been 
purchased only by hypocrisy and shame. They 
waded through a red sea, not to a land flowing with 
milk and honey, but to a land flowing with their 
children's tears. Only their enemies remained to 



314 THE SAFE SIDE. 

write their history; but the slight glimpse they 
give us of them, coupled with the attending cir- 
cumstances, indicates that it was not on account of 
their vices, but because of their virtues, that our 
songs of Zion are not now rendered discordant by 
notes from Gerizim. 

The reader will not find this account in Fox's 
Book of Martyrs, but is referred to the forty- 
seventh chapter of Gibbon's Rome for that and 
many other items of Christian history with which 
it might be well to refresh the memory at the 
present time. 

The author of the Fourth Gospel felt that there 
should have been some supernatural event at the 
arrest of Jesus somewhat in keeping with the 
powers that ought to have been at his command. 
He therefore represents that, when Jesus spoke to 
the men sent to arrest him, " they went backwards 
and fell to the ground " (xviii, 6). This incident 
seems to have been unknown to the writers of the 
other gospels. 

Though the church had advanced in intelligence, 
these men were still ignorant and superstitious. 
Some of their inconsistencies were owing to this 
and some were owing to matter added to the New 
Testament in later times. That book continued 
to grow during at least two centuries after their 
time. The ascension was not thought of by them 
and they did not recognize the importance of giv- 
ing more witnesses to the resurrection. The in- 
creased testimony on this latter point was inserted 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 315 

long afterwards (evidently) in I Cor. xv, 6, 
where Paul is made to say that Christ was seen 
after the resurrection by above five hund7'ed brethren 
at once. That this is an interpolation is further 
evidenced by the words, according to the scriptures^ 
which are inserted in the 3d and 4th verses. There 
were no scriptural records of Christ in Paul's time, 
not even uncanonical, and hence it was an ex- 
pression he could not have used. 

When this gospel was written, Christ was al- 
ready worshiped by a large number as equal to 
God and by a still larger number as but little less 
than God. It was therefore written under different 
circumstances from any other book in the New 
Testament. The writers of the others could not 
have had the least conception of the attention their 
writings were to receive. They did not even 
think of future generations, but led a compara- 
tively small number of people in a movement that 
was expected daily to end in the millennium. 

But the author (or authors) of the Fourth Gospel 
wrote in a knowledge of the work to be done. 
Not that even he knew the full extent and success 
that was to attend the Christian movement; but 
the success was already so great that a full knowl- 
edge of the future could not have further excited 
thought and care in all his statements. It is the 
only book in the New Testament written for future 
generations and with some apprehension of the 
criticism it would receive. Under such circum- 
stances every new statement would be carefully 



3l6 THE SAFE SIDE. 

weighed and necessarily inserted for a purpose. 
No matter how slight the statement may be, 
whenever it conveys information not given in the 
synoptic gospels, such information was carefully 
studied and inserted to accomplish some desired 
effect. This fact needs to be taken into consider- 
ation in noting the following incident related in 
the last chapter. In the 19th verse Jesus is rep- 
resented as saying to Peter, ""Follow ??ie/' 

20 Then Peter, turning about, seeth the dis- 
ciple whom Jesus loved, following; (which also 
leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, 
which is he that betrayeth thee?) 

21 Peter seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, and 
what shall this man do? 

22 Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry 
till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me. 

23 Then went this saying abroad among the 
brethren, that that disciple should not die; yet 
Jesus said not unto him. He shall not die; but. If 
I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to 
thee? 

24 This is the disciple which testifieth of these 
things, and wrote these things ; and we know that 
his testimony is true. 

When we consider the time at which this gos- 
pel was published and the greatly interested and 
questionable source whence it emanated, the ob- 
ject of the information contained in those verses 
is apparent. The author did not venture to state 
directly that John would live until the second 
coming of Christ, which was still regarded as 
being in the near future ; but he said enough to 
convey that belief to the most credulous and to 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 317 

impress upon the minds of others the idea of John's 
living to a supematurally great age. The pre- 
tense that he was the disciple whom Jesus specially 
loved is peculiar to this gospel only. It is brought 
in with a labored reference to the Lord's supper, 
where this partiality is represented to have been a 
fact recognized by the other apostles. 

Those men who caused this gospel to be written 
knew that the reputed author would at that time 
have to be nearly two hundred years old, but they 
also knew the credulity and superstition of their 
followers and played upon those qualities so as not 
only to warmly attach them to this gospel, but to 
make it seem to emanate more directly than any 
other from Jesus, through a beloved disciple left 
upon earth for that purpose. They intended to 
cause the very existence of this gospel to be looked 
upon by many as miraculous, but have ingeniously 
so worded it that a Christian may believe much 
or little of the implied supernatural part, accord- 
ing to the extent of his superstition or credulity. 

In this they have been successful, for there is 
every variety of opinion concerning John, from 
a belief in a supematurally great age to belief 
that he still lives and is designated (in this latter 
case) as the "wandering Jew." Well-drilled be- 
lievers in the virtue of faith are not much affected 
by the late appearance of this gospel. They have 
much more improbable things to swallow than to 
believe that the Apostle John lived some two 
centuries. 



3l8 THE SAFE SIDE. 

This effort of the author is all the more marked 
if, as some suppose, this gospel originally ended 
with the preceding chapter, this last having been 
annexed at a later date. If so, it was for the 
reason just given, which had probably been sug- 
gested, if not necessitated, by criticisms made 
upon this point; This last chapter is the only 
one in the New Testament in which Christ is rep- 
resented to have appeared in Galilee after the 
resurrection. This appearance, however, is made 
to agree with the synoptics by a line in Matt, 
xxvi, 32, and Mark xiv, 28, .wherein Christ is made 
to foretell the event. But a late discovery of a 
part of a gospel older than Matthew or Mark goes 
to show that the verse in question is an interpola- 
tion inserted to force an agreement between the 
synoptic gospels and this last chapter of John. 
The words are : " But after I am risen again I will 
go before you into Galilee." 

An account of this archaeological discovery was 
published in the Chicago Tribune July 11, 1885, from 
the Vienna correspondent of the London Tiines^ and 
is as follows: 

Professor Karabacek has been good enough to 
show me the papyrus which has lately been dis- 
covered among the El Fayum manuscripts and 
which is alleged to be the fragment of a gospel 
older than those of St. Matthew and St. Mark. 
It is a very small fragment, measuring three and 
a half centimeters in length and four and one- 
third in width, and contains seven lines, having 
one hundred and five words. Of these ninety-six 
can be plainly deciphered, but nine are indistinct. 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 319 

Some lines are mutilated at the beginning and 
end, and it is supposed that from ninety-one to 
ninety-eight letters are missing. The number of 
deficient letters can be reckoned by comparing 
lines three, four, and seven with the others. The 
seventh contains but four letters. 

The writing is in Greek, and Dr. G. Bickell, of 
the University of Innsbriick, who discovered and 
deciphered the fragment, concludes, from the form 
of the letters and the abbreviations, that it was 
written in the third century; but from the style of 
the composition he infers that it dates originally 
from the first century, and this is also the opinion 
of Dr. Edward Harnark, editor of the Theologische 
Literatur-Zeitung of Leipsic. 

Here is the translation of the fragment, line for 
line. As already reported, its parallel is to be 
found in Matthew xxvi, verses 30 to 34, and Mark 
xiv, verses 26 to 30: 

1 But after supper, as they went out. 

2 You will all take offense this night. 

3 According to the Scriptures, " I will smite the 
shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered." 

4 Then Peter spake. 

5 And if all, not I. 

6 He said to him, 

7 The cock will crow twice, and before that 
thou shalt deny me thrice. 

The omission of the words, to be found both in 
Matthew and Mark, " But after I am risen again I 
will go before you into Galilee," is noticeable. 
Dr. Bickell, reviewing the fragment in the Zeit- 
schrift fiir catholische Theologie — a periodical 
printed at Innsbriick for private circulation — lays 
stress upon the importance of the manuscript as 
being the earliest fragment of a written gospel, 
not canonical indeed, but yet no pseudograph or 
heretical composition. Dr. Bickell 's views are set 
forth and approvingly commented upon in an 
article by Dr. Harnark, which appears in the last 



320 THE SAFE SIDE, 

number of the Theologische Literatur-Zeitimg of 
Leipsic. Dr. Harnark, who is a fervent Roman 
Catholic, distinguished for his Greek scholarship, 
remarked that, so far as he can judge, Dr. Bickell 
has taken no liberty with the text, having only 
added five letters, which it could be plainly 
guessed were the missing ones, but which simply 
mended broken words without altering the sense 
of a line. The antiquity and genuineness of the 
fragment are, he argues, beyond dispute, and he 
concludes : 

" It is strange that a small strip of papyrus, con- 
taining about one hundred words, should be able 
to raise so many important questions with regard 
to the originality of two of the gospels, but it 
would be too easy to dispose of these questions by 
saying that the papyrus is not genuine. Having 
given our opinion as to the genuineness, we must, 
in the interest of truth, maintain that there is no 
explaining away the omission of our Lord's 
prophecy as to his going into Galilee, except by 
supposing that the author of the manuscript wrote 
from memory. But what probability is there that, 
writing from memory, he would have left out the 
most striking and important passage in our Lord's 
conversation with his disciples? Let critics more 
learned than we are endeavor to account for the 
omission more satisfactorily than we can. For 
ourselves we must submit that it goes far toward 
suggesting a doubt as to whether the Gospels as- 
cribed to Matthew and Mark were, in the form in 
which we know them now, composed by those 
disciples." 

It will be seen that the fragment has the verses 
preceding and following the verse quoted, but 
that verse is " conspicuous by its absence." 

This discovery and the brevity, directness, 
break in the sense, and importance of the verse 



THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 32 I 

quoted establish a reasonable certainty that it is 
an interpolation, intended to fraudulently confirm, 
not only the Fourth Gospel, but its most question- 
able chapter. 

The original authors of the synoptic gospels no 
doubt believed what they wrote, their fault being 
in their judgment rather than in their honesty. 
The Fourth Gospel is the only one in which that 
mental condition of the author was reversed, and 
by his arts it has been made the most popular gos- 
pel of them all. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE QUESTION AS MET BY MODERN AUTHORS. 



IT is commonly assumed that in any controversy 
those who make the best argument, supported 
by abundant proof, will win over to their views the 
persons addressed. But this is the case only where 
such persons are either disinterested or undecided 
upon the question at issue. When there are set- 
tled convictions in opposition, the feeling which 
good arguments raise is not one of conviction, but 
one of contention, and this feeling will be bitter in 
proportion to the strength of the argument. It 
is this peculiarity which holds large numbers of 
citizens so persistently to their political parties, 
regardless of changed circumstances. Having 
once enlisted upon one side, any superior position 
of the other party only increases the feeling of 
opposition, which is often carried to such lengths 
that men will support candidates and measures 
that they otherwise would have opposed. Those 
who do finally change to opposite views do so very 
slowly and seemingly voluntarily. 

A noted writer says that the great changes 
which the public mind imdergoes come through 
new ideas of new generations rather than from 
any change of those living. The mind is like 



QUESTION MET BY MODERN AUTHORS. 323 

paper upon which, with many, certain ideas are 
too strongly stamped ever to be erased, no matter 
how strong may be the proof of error. A few are 
capable of listening to the argument and proof of 
an opponent and being convinced, and this is al- 
v/ays an indication of intelligence. It is even then 
the work of their own reasoning faculties in part, 
though acted upon by others. 

Those who take the trouble to write books in 
support of Christianity must necessarily be more 
devoted to it than the average, as the matter of 
their works always shows them to be. Their 
writings exhibit a strength of belief too great to 
admit of reasoning from a disinterested standpoint 
themselves or of listening to it from others. It is 
natural enough that they should write, but they 
should not labor to produce an impression that 
they were recording convictions arrived at through 
unbiased opinions. But this is now frequently done 
either by the author or the Christian public. One 
of the most notable instances of this kind is the 
work entitled Testimony of the Evangelists, by 
Simon Greenleaf, ll. d. It is made manifest 
that the author was an eminent jurist, and as such 
particularly capable of examining evidence, and, 
after such exhaustive investigation as the magni- 
tude of the work indicates, it is implied that the 
conclusions were irresistible and should be ac- 
cepted by his readers. 

But, upon inherited opinions, lawyers, like ev- 
erybody else, are incapable of reasoning disin- 



324 THE SAFE SIDE. 

terestedly. Their experience enables them to 
present their own views with superior skill, and 
that is all the advantage that experience gives 
them. Lawyers often have to advocate a cause 
where the facts are all against them, and for that 
reason they take more pride in successfully advocat- 
ing a weak cause than a strong one, for it is the 
greater test of their ability. In doing this their 
experience has taught them certain, peculiarities 
of human nature of which they often take advan- 
tage. One of the most common, as previously 
stated, is to raise false issues when they are weak 
on the true one. Experience shows that the mind 
is easily misled in this way and will mistake a 
settlement of the false issue for a settlement of 
the whole question. Even in common conversa- 
tion two men differing upon any subject will more 
frequently than otherwise run off on to questions 
quite foreign to that originally raised. It requires 
considerable thought and skill on the part of a 
debater to hold the debate strictly to the point 
under consideration. 

Another deception often practiced, of a similar 
nature, is to argue wholly upon the one point upon 
which the most evidence can be brought and 
ignore all others. Lawyers will also at times 
make great display of books and papers and by 
outward appearance try to create an impression of 
thorough study upon the 'question under considera- 
tion. 

The first and last named features are conspicu- 



QUESTION MET BY MODERN AUTHORS. 325 

ous in the work just mentioned. It is a ponder- 
ous volume. Every verse in the New Testament 
is seemingly compared with corresponding parts 
in all the gospels, and it was certainly a great 
labor. A reader would naturally be impressed 
with a belief that the work covered all the grounds 
of Christian faith and that the author's conclu- 
sions were irresistible. But the work is of a 
microscopic nature. It has not taken a compre- 
hensive view of the truthfulness of Christianity, 
but has simply magnified an infinitesimal frag- 
ment of that question. 

If the gospels differed much in their accounts 
of Christ, believers would be obliged to adopt one 
as the truth and reject all parts of the others 
wherein they differed from it. But, if the gospels 
may be shown to harmonize (and Mr. Greenleaf 's 
great labors were upon that point), then believ- 
ers may base their faith upon the assertion of four 
simple, credulous disciples, instead of but one. 
If we should admit that those gospels were not 
written until from one to two hundred years after 
the birth of Christ and that it was known who 
Matthew was, and that John was the author of the 
Fourth Gospel, and should admit that the author of 
each gospel was with Christ every day of his life 
and noted down his sa5angs at the time, and that 
all the accounts agreed to the letter, it would still 
be an imperceptible advance toward proving the 
divinity of Christ. Those who have been taught 
in their youth to look with awe upon the writings 



326 THE SAFE SIDE. 

of the apostles cannot realize how trifling and un- 
important their testimony is. If not only the four, 
but the twelve, or even the seventy had repeated 
the same account, it alone would still be unim- 
portant evidence. 

The author points out that the question he is 
about to discuss will be argued by him as a lawyer, 
under the rules of evidence usual in courts, and 
he necessarily proceeds at once to state what that 
question is. This he does in his dedication, 
giving, in a few words, both sides of that question, 
one of which is as follows : 

The religion of Jesus Christ aims at nothing less 
than the utter overthrow of all other systems of 
religion in the world, denouncing them as inade- 
quate to the wants of man, false in their founda- 
tion, and dangerous in their tendency. It not 
only solicits the grave attention of all to whom 
its doctrines are presented, but it demands their 
cordial belief as a matter of vital concernment. 
These are no ordinary claims, and it seems hardly 
possible for a rational being to regard them with 
even a subdued interest, much less to treat them 
with mere indifference and contempt. If not true, 
they are little else than the pretensions of a bold 
impostor, which, not satisfied with having already 
enslaved millions of the human race, seeks to con- 
tinue its encroachments upon human liberty until 
all nations shall be subjected under its iron rule. 

A man unwilling to admit the divinity of Christ 
upon the simple ground of the virtue of credulity, 
and seeking for evidence of that divinity outside 
of the system, would feel that, in the above, he 
had found the exact and long-sought-for issue and 



QUESTION MET BY MODERN AUTHORS. 327 

would now learn, from one particularly capable of 
teaching, why it was that the religion of Jesus 
Christ was not based upon " the pretensions of a 
bold impostor." It is the root of the Christian 
system, and, necessarily, the point was soon 
reached. It was not only soon reached, but 
passed, in the following few words : 

The proof that God has revealed himself to man 
by especial and express communication and that 
Christianity constitutes that revelation is no part 
of these inquiries. This has already been shown 
in the most satisfactory manner by others, who 
have written expressly upon this subject. Refer- 
ring, therefore, to their writings for the argument 
and proofs, the fact will here be assumed to be 
true. 

When a body is forced into too small a space for 
it, something must give way, and an examination 
will show the exact point of greatest weakness. 
It is the same with a truth and a falsehood upon 
the same subject, one or the other must yield. 
As before stated, the sacredness of the Bible and 
of every doctrine of the Christian system is but 
the logical conclusion or necessity following the 
one great pretense, the divinity of Christ. If that 
be- false, the entire system falls to the ground; and 
yet, upon that one point, there is not an item of 
proof or argument to be offered, none whatever. 
The Bible is no evidence, for its sacredness is 
to be proven by Christ. With his divinity estab- 
lished, the Bible is all that believers claim for it, 
but otherwise it is nothing. 



328 THE SAFE SIDE. 

The utter absence of any evidence of the divinity 
of Christ is conspicuous to those who will investi- 
gate. Some divines meet this by saying that, if 
his divinity could be proven, there would be no 
virtue in faith, which is very true. Its exaltation 
was necessary in the absence of any evidence. 
Few, however, awake to this absence of evidence, 
because of their accompanying belief in the sa- 
credness of the Bible, or, rather, in ancient con- 
clusions derived from it. 

When, therefore, a learned man, but a consti- 
tutional believer, sets out to discuss the evidence 
upon which that belief was founded, it becomes 
interesting to observe his collision with that one 
point. It is like a ponderous body entering a 
space too narrow for it. Either his learning or 
honesty must yield and the truth of the disputed 
point be established or the encounter must be 
avoided. We have seen how Mr. Greenleaf met 
that one all-important question, after his implied 
power to confirm it. With the admission that 
" God has revealed himself to man through Chris- 
tianity," a wide field is opened for the learned to 
try to give that revelation a semblance of even 
moderate intelligence. With that established, 
there is latitude for argument forevermore, but 
until then there is but the one question as to 
Christ's divine authority. 

People grow up having a vague idea that proof 
of the truth outside of the Bible was originally 
taught them in Sunday-school or somewhere else 



QUESTION MET BY MODERN AUTHORS. 329 

in their youth ; that it was so simple as to be of a 
primary nature, like the multiplication table, and 
could be turned to, if necessary, at any moment. 
Ideas of this nature are so common that a constitu- 
tional believer will enter upon a discussion of the 
truth of Christianity and be face to face with this 
one point before he discovers that he cannot, just 
at the moment, bring to mind those evidences he 
supposed he had long since learned. Something 
like this must have been the experience of the 
author of the Testimony of the Evangelists. He 
stated in his bill, " If not true, they are little else 
than the pretensions of a bold impostor," and, 
therefore, to show that they were not the preten- 
sions of a bold impostor was his self-appointed 
task. But when he reaches the question of im- 
postor or divinity he seems to fail to remember 
just where that overpowering evidence was, and 
avoids the contest by stating that it was no part of 
his inquiries. 

An indispensable requisite for unquestioning 
faith is that the believer, on questions of his re- 
ligion, shall hold his own intelligence down to a 
level with that of the writers of the gospels. 
Every part of the Bible must be sacred with them ; 
they must revere every word of it. For instance, 
in Matthew i, 17, is the following: 

So all the generations from Abraham to David 
are fourteen generations; and from David until 
the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen gen- 
erations ; and from the carrying away into Babylon 
unto Christ are fourteen generations. 



330 THE SAFE SIDE. 

This is a low degree of saperstition and one 
that, in any other connection, would not now re- 
ceive the least notice from even quite ignorant 
men. But so learned a man as the author of the 
Testimony of the Evangelists j:reats this passage 
as worthy of pious thought and gravely stops to 
count up those generations and show the state- 
ment to be true. This he seems unable to do 
without, some little rearranging or explanation, 
after which he gives three columns of names, 
showing each to be fourteen. 

Paley's Evidence of Christianity is a work 
wherein the author is actuated by quite the same 
idea as the author of Testimony of the Evangelists, 
expending his labors, however, upon Paul's epistles 
rather than the gospels. The author seems to be 
laboring under the impression that showing Paul's 
epistles were not the production of unknown au- 
thors, but that they were actually written by Paul 
himself, was evidence, outside of the Christian 
system, of its truth. There is no necessity for 
questioning most of the points these gentlemen 
argue upon, but, on the contrary, what is now 
most demanded of them is that they admit the 
truths as to those writings, and not indirectly 
deny them in efforts to explain them away. 

There never has been a time when the truth of 
the divine pretensions of Christ was so widely 
disputed among Christian-reared people as now 
and never a time when faith was so fast losing 
ground. The church itself is rejecting some 



QUESTION MET BY MODERN AUTHORS. 33 1 

and quietly ignoring more of its old doctrines, 
and thousands repudiate them wholly. The net 
amount of belief in the whole system is probably 
50 per cent, less than outward appearances indi- 
cate. This century, particularly the last half of 
it, is the beginning of the end of that superstition. 
Mr. Froude stated in 1863 that "The truth of the 
gospel history is more widely doubted now in 
Europe than at any time since the conversion of 
Constantine. " Under these circumstances ecclesi- 
astics now frequently avoid that one great question 
by affecting a lofty disdain of it, asserting that 
its proof has been so long established by both 
time and numbers as to place it above further 
discussion. 

It was believed to be a fact, through a lapse of 
time longer than the Christian era, that the 
planets were possessed of retrograde movements. 
To doubt those movements was to doubt the evi- 
dence of one's own eyes, for they could be wit- 
nessed by any who would patiently observe them. 
All could see that the planets stopped, turned 
back on their course, again stopped, and then re- 
newed their true course with temporarily increased 
speed. They could see also that the time between 
those retrograde movements was not the same in 
any two planets and could occur in any part of 
their orbits. This phenomenon was a puzzle to 
learned men through long ages, and they advanced 
deeply studied theories in explanation of it. But 
Vv'hen at last we came to know that the earth re- 



33^ THE SAFE SIDE. 

volved around the sun we then discovered that the 
retrograde movement of the planets was an optical 
delusion growing out of our own movement around 
the sun. No matter how learned or distinguished 
or numerous the men were who had supported 
those theories, nor through what long ages they 
had been sanctified, the simple truth wiped them 
all away. Neither time nor numbers can ever 
make a falsehood true. 

Some three hundred millions of Chinese, through 
two or three thousand years, have asserted that 
their emperor was cousin to the moon. This is a 
far more modest assertion than the one about 
which it is insisted there shall be no further 
argument, and there is exactly as much reason 
for demanding that the truth of the Chinese as- 
sertion be admitted without question. 

When we are reviev/ing the works of God we 
must try to comprehend distance, size, and time 
as understood by him. We must not look upon 
space with the eyes of a surveyor, nor upon time 
with the eyes of a historian. As we look back 
over the past we find that the further we get from 
our own time the less are we interested in the con- 
tentions of the people and the more are we inter- 
ested in the development which those contentions 
begat. That which is our Creator's only object 
in our life-long struggles becomes in time the only 
history of interest to us. It is not the history 
that man's work makes that we seek, but that which 
God's work makes. The rise and fall of nations 



QUESTION MET BY MODERN AUTHORS. 333 

become but small matters of local interest as to 
time and unimportant as compared to a knowledge 
of the intellectual advancement that God is work- 
ing in us. It is the laws which made that de- 
velopment rather than the human laws of the 
times that we need to know. 

There will come a time when the whole Chris- 
tian era will have no other interest than the il- 
lustration which it supplies of the never-failing 
evil consequences that attend an ethical govern- 
ment based upon that which is false, whether that 
government be by the whole world or by but a 
single individual. This illustration will show that 
with advancing intelligence both the importance 
and the labor of separating truth from falsehood 
become greater and that our best efforts at all 
times should be devoted to that end. 

Henry Ward Beecher was one of those who 
recognized that the strongest position that can be 
taken in support of the divinity of Christ is to 
affirm that time and numbers have placed that 
question above further discussion. In his Life of 
Christ he objects to the argumentative nature of 
such works, and certainly his is not argumentative, 
nor does it pretend to be. However liberal he 
may have been otherwise, he was a constitutional 
believer in the divinity of Jesus Christ and his 
work is simply his own prolonged adulation of 
him. 

The same can be said of all the various Lives 
of Christ and of the different apostles written by 



334 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Christian writers. The New Testament contains 
all that is known of any of them, and, to enlarge 
upon their career, the authors from their imagina- 
tion depict extended details based upon a sentence 
or even a word in the gospels. 

The History of the Christian Religion, by 
Chas. B. Waite, a. m., may also be said to treat of 
the testimony of the evangelists, and it does so in 
a more thorough manner. But the author, at the 
close, has a fault similar to that of Mr. Greenleaf. 
In his summing up he adds a conclusion, of the 
subject of which he had not treated in his work. 
He stated : 

In conclusion, as the result of this investigation, 
it may be repeated that no evidence is found of 
the existence in the first century of either of the 
following doctrines : The immaculate conception, 
the miracles of Christ, his material resurrection. 
No one of these doctrines is to be found in the 
epistles of the New Testament, nor have we been 
able to find them in any other writings of the first 
century. 

As to the four gospels, in coming to the conclu- 
sion that they were not written in the first century, 
we have but recorded the convictions of the more 
advanced scholars of the present day, irrespective 
of their religious views in other respects, with 
whom the question as now presented is, How early 
in the second century were they composed? 

Discarding, as inventions of the second century, 
having no historical foundation, the three doctrines 
above named, and much else which must stand or 
fall with them, what remains of the Christian 
religion? 

All that is of value, all that is in harmony with 



QUESTION MET BY MODERN AUTHORS. 335 

the immutable laws of the universe, still remains. 
We have still the divine teachings of Christ. The 
more important of these, though more or less in- 
terpolated and corrupted, have been preserved and 
handed down, both by tradition and in writing, 
and, unlike the books referred to, can be traced 
back to well-authenticated records of the first 
century. Those teachings impress upon the mind 
and heart the highest and purest form of morality. 
They have never been improved upon by any 
theological speculations. After all the systems 
of theologians shall have passed away, they will 
stand forth, shining brighter and brighter even 
unto the perfect day. 

The question of Christ's superior teachings was 
not touched upon in Mr. Waite's book and certainly 
there is nothing in the Nev\r Testament to sustain 
those assertions. Such an admission embraces the 
pith of the whole question. The false standard 
of virtues and sins of the Christian system consti- 
tutes one of the greatest evils of that system. It 

wastes the best impulses of mankind upon its 

• 
worthless ethics, while it is too often silent upon 

those duties which the religious feelings would 

otherwise cause a person to perform. It is far 

easier to keep within its false standard than it is 

to resist those temptations which, if not resisted, 

will bring loss or sorrow to others, and hence 

dishonorable people follow the church's simple 

standard and thus secure its influence in giving 

them respectability in the midst of their corrupt 

acts. 

Evolution and Christianity, by J. F. Yorke, is 



336 THE SAFE SIDE. 

a work that treats in part of the same subject as 
does that of Judge Waite, while the latter's book 
is otherwise similar to Supernatural Religion, 
though each occupies a field of its own. 

All three of the authors just quoted write seem- 
ingly as Christians, for they credit Christianity 
with that which involves crediting Christ with 
having been sent upon a divine mission and with 
having been the author of supernatural teachings; 
yet collectively their various rejections leave him 
without a history, without recorded sentiments, 
without a supernatural presence upon earth, and 
without a reason for his coming. 

The canonical gospels were the church's choice 
of all that were written, added to which are its 
many interpolations inserted to improve the rec- 
ords of Christ. They not only include all that 
was known of him, but much more, and a child's 
primer could contain every recorded word of his; 
and, if he gave any such wonderful teachings or 
even uttered one valuable sentiment that the world 
would never have had but for him, it will be easy 
to point out to us the exact words. 

This last lingering admission of superiority in 
Christ is the result of early associations coupled 
with deference to public opinion. It is the wound 
that remains after the tumor has been removed. 
It is an exhibition of the one greatest power that 
supports the Christian system in our day. It is a 
power so great that, even after the individual's 
eyes are open to the vast mental delusion of the 



QUESTION MET BY MODERN AUTHORS. 337 

system, he will still make this one admission, 
which, if true, confirms the truth of those dog- 
mas which he has rejected. 

The supposition that there must have been in- 
telligence of a high order behind a movement that 
grew to such magnitude as Christianity is one 
of the greatest errors connected with it. We know 
nothing of God himself. We can only wonder and 
imagine as to the personality of the great Being 
who created the universe. We see his works only, 
but as for him our imagination must take the 
place of knowledge. So, if those feelings which 
we have for God are to be transferred to Jesus, 
it is of the utmost importance that we be equally 
ignorant of the personality of Jesus. That com- 
bination of circumstances which originated a be- 
lief in the divinity of Christ and almost totally 
obliterated any personal knowledge of him was 
the one greatest indispensable requisite to success 
in establishing those feelings of veneration for 
him. The belief that Jesus was equal with God, 
without any knowledge of how that belief origi- 
nated, was what was wanted. The accounts of 
him, slight as they are, still give a knowledge of 
him that is the church's greatest weakness to-day 
and will yet overthrow it. 

Dr. Doellinger, in his First Ages of Christianity, 
piously explains how it happened that there was a 
following of John the Baptist separate from that 
of Jesus by stating that the reason why John's 
followers did not accept Christ was because it was 
22 



338 THE SAFE SIDE. 

their nature to cling to that which was low rather 
than to that which was higher. 

We know of late years that man has advanced 
from a very low degree and, if it were human to 
prefer the low and if he were naturally depraved, 
that this advancement could never have happened. 
Man is the exact opposite of what Christianity 
has been teaching. He is naturally kind and 
honorable and the existence of every government 
has always depended upon those qualities predom- 
inating to a very great degree. Men greatly 
deficient in them become at enmity with their 
race, and it is a law of nature that such will work 
their own ruin and death. Man is always seeking 
for further enlightenment and is the only animal 
that will improve alone under the working of his 
individual mind. 

The doctor's explanation amounts to represent- 
ing that it was low to join the movement of John 
the Baptist, which the ancient Christians so anx- 
iously and fraudulently absorbed into their own 
system. Furthermore, the relative positions of 
the Baptists and Christ were, at that time, the 
reverse of what this explanation implies. Chris- 
tian books and sermons are full of little statements 
of this nature. They do not admit of the least criti- 
cism, nor are they expected to be criticised. They 
are given as exhibitions of piety, and their accept- 
ance is expected as is that of other exhibitions of 
piety. Within the system it is indelicate to point 
out their inconsistencies and falsehoods, even 



QUESTION MET BY MODERN AUTHORS. 339 

though, as in this instance, that falsehood is an 
insult to the Creator. 

The author of The Testimony of the Evangelists 
did not pass, without careful thought, the place 
where he should have given arguments outside of 
the system in proof of revealed religion. He re- 
fers, in a note, to Home's Introduction to the 
Holy Scriptures, an old English work which, in 
its first few pages, does offer a few ideas upon that 
point. The manner in which this reference is 
made indicates that the author's mind ranged far 
and wide for the much needed evidence and that 
he felt the poverty of quoting but one book, for he 
couples it with a reference to a lecture by Prof. 
Hopkins and then withdraws the latter, giving as 
a reason that Mr. Home refers to all other writers 
upon the subject. But Mr. Home makes no refer- 
ence to others offering such arguments, nor could 
I find any arguments in Prof. Hopkins's published 
lectures. The truth is, comparatively nothing has 
been written to prove the truth of the divinity of 
Christ that was not based upon belief in some 
dogma that grew out of it. People are blinded to 
this fact by the great breadth of the system; they 
grow up in the faith and are argued out of it, 
never into it. With the truth of some one of its 
doctrines admitted, an argument can be made to 
sustain others, and thus that which is within the 
system seems to have a fulcrum outside of it, and, 
therefore, to have a bearing upon the whole ques- 
tion. 



340 THE SAFE SIDE. 

For example, Mr. Home wished to defend the 
doctrine of the fall of man both from unbelievers 
and from those within the church, some of the 
latter having resorted to the usual method of get- 
ting rid of its most glaring follies by asserting that 
the Mosaic account is allegorical. To do this he 
puts in small capitals what he calls an undeniable 
FACT, " the evident ruined condition of the human 
race," in witness whereof he cites labor, sorrow, 
pain, death, nature of social life, and origin of 
evil. 

But belief that the evils of life did not originally 
exist is as much a doctrine of the church as is the 
doctrine of the fall of man ; it is a part of that 
doctrine. Every step of progress that man has 
made has been through his efforts to overcome the 
troubles of life, and if released from that necessity 
our race would return to a state of ignorance and 
idleness. The troubles of this life are the result 
of our own incapacity, and we shall yet overcome 
them all. This life is but one condition of an ex- 
istence that may be eternal, and those who pre- 
sume to pass judgment upon its success or failure 
need to take into consideration the proportion of 
time that this life bears to the whole. 

If eternity might be limited to as short a time as 
one million years, the duration of this life would 
still be such a small part of the whole that exist- 
ence might be an immeasurable blessing, even 
though this part of it should be passed in poverty, 
sickness, and wretchedness. Those evils can be 



QUESTION MET BY MODERN AUTHORS. 34I 

only an insignificant item in an eternal existence, 
and, considering the service they render, cannot 
be called a misfortune, even though seemingly 
borne by innocent people. We send our little 
children to school and make them rack their inex- 
perienced minds over simple problems, the solu- 
tion of which renders us no service. This is often 
a sore trial to them, from which they would gladly 
be released. But, as we know the great advantage 
of their schooling, none would for a moment pre- 
sume to pronounce that enforced attendance at 
school a cruelty. And yet in one day our little 
children will experience grief at this enforced at- 
tendance which bears an immeasurably greater 
proportion to the time of their whole lives than 
do the troubles of this life bear to eternity. 

The seemingly unjust distribution of the bless- 
ings of this life has attracted universal attention 
in every age. Nature sometimes seems to never 
tire of loading some grossly unworthy object with 
every blessing, not only to the neglect, but even 
at the expense, of the purest and most deserving 
of their generation. This discrimination has 
frequently done such violence to all human ideas 
of right and justice as to cause some to assert it 
to be evidence of the nonexistence of God, while 
others offer this fact as proof of the existence of a 
devil. But the extremes of the joys and sorrows 
of this life sink into insignificance when measured 
by the life to come. We cannot stake off the dis- 
tance to the stars with chains and links. We have 



342 THE SAFE SIDE. 

no use for hours and minutes in measuring eternity, 
nor can we, from the narrow field of this life, 
comprehend God and criticise his laws regarding 
us. The existence of his never- varying laws in- 
dicates that he is not omnipresent and the experi- 
ence of the past points to the fact that those evils 
for which so many have been ready to " curse their 
God and die " have their base in either our indi- 
vidual or collective ignorance. 

Punishment seems to be a primary law of God. 
If we do wrong we suffer and that suffering turns 
our attention sooner or later to its cause, and con- 
sequently to its correction, and consequently tends 
to human progress. It is one of the faults of 
Christianity that it prevents speculation as to what 
the future life may be. Having asserted that the 
Bible is the sole authority for belief in a future 
life, it is, from necessity, confined to the crude 
and ignorant ideas of its authors as to what 
that future life actually is, and those narrow 
ideas not only do not admit, but prohibit a study 
of the objects of this existence and of the great 
and important bearing it has upon the life to 
come. 

Mr. Home's work is a voluminous one, but 
upon the point in question there is, as usual, but 
little said. Part of the first chapter and all the 
remainder of his great labors lie wholly within 
the system, and as an argument to unbelievers it 
is much like one's effort to lift himself by his 
boot-straps. He begins with the proposition that 



QUESTION MET BY MODERN AUTHORS. 343 

" Divine revelations are possible, probable, and 
necessary. " 

For the probabilities he refers to what was only 
the workings of natural mental faculties as mani- 
fested in old superstitions and cites the curiosity 
of the ancients as to future existence, implying 
that that curiosity must necessarily be gratified 
and that it was done through Christianity. 

He gave eight reasons for the necessities of di- 
vine revelation, as follows: 

1st. The ideas of the ancients respecting the nature 
and worship of God were dark, confused, and iniperfeci. 

The united voices of all the Christians that ever 
lived, solemnly proclaiming that God lost partial 
control of the human race, constitutes the greatest 
insult that humanity can ojffer to the Creator. Not 
in history, not in even the most ancient supersti- 
tion known, is there an exhibition of darker, more 
confused, and more imperfect ideas of God than 
this. 

2d. They were ignorant of the true account of the 
creation of the world. 

That is to say, it was not until we had the Bible 
that we knew that the world was made in six days, 
that the sun was incidental to it and made in one 
day, and the stars — compared to which the world 
is like a pebble on the seashore. — were also made 
in a day, and that all, sun, moon, and stars, were 
set " in the firmament of the heaven to give light 
upon the earth." Mr. Home does not explain 
what use the people made of this knowledge, but 



344 THE SAFE SIDE. 

churchmen claim that civilization was owing to 
Christianity, and probably in his opinion this im- 
portant information has much to do with it. It 
is about all of geology and astronomy that we 
have in the Bible. 

3^. They were also ignormit of the origin of evil and 
the cause of depravity and misery which actually exist 
among mankind. 

Christian ideas upon this subject are of the 
lowest order known, and the cruelties which they 
practiced upon one another through centuries of 
the Christian era are the greatest exhibition of 
misery known in history. 

Otth. Eqttally ignorant were the heathens of any means ^ 
ordained and established by the Almighty^ by which a 
reconciliation could be effected between God and man. 

This lies within the system and is of no interest 
to an unbeliever. The pretense that there needs 
to be a reconciliation between God and man is 
part of Christianity's great insult to God. 

^th. They were ignorant.^ at least they taught nothings 
of divine grace and assistance towards our attainment of 
virtue and perseverance in it. 

This is not true. It has been shown that the 
church had no originality in that respect. It was 
its practice to destroy anything that conflicted 
with its pretensions. This fifth reason also im- 
plies the usual claim of the church that every- 
thing good has come through Christianity. . 

dth. They had only dark and co7ifused notions of the 
summum bonum or supreme felicity of man. 



QUESTION MET BY MODERN AUTHORS. 345 

Heaven, as described in Revelation, would be 
a place of endless mental suffering, and Christians 
hope to reach it by treating the enjoyments of this 
life as a branch of human affairs under the especial 
control of Satan, and therefore to be avoided. 

1th. They had weak and iinperfect notions of the im- 
mortality of the soul. 

Belief in the immortality of the soul is not at 
all dependent upon the Bible. Neither would our 
immortality be any reason for believing it, if 
without it (the Bible) there were no evidence of 
our immortality. Our hopes do not supply evi- 
dence that we shall have the thing hoped for. 

Zth. If the philosophers were thus uncertain co?icern- 
ing the immortality of the soul., their ideas ivere equally 
confused respecting the certainty of the eternal rewards 
and punishments of a future state and of the resurrection 
of the body. 

Here, again, he is within the Christian system, 
and upon points, too, about which its believers 
greatly differ. 

In his argument upon his various propositions 
he cites the views of opponents and considers it 
strong evidence against them that they do not 
agree. But their disagreement is no proof of the 
truth of Christianity, nor is their disagreement 
any greater than that within the system. 

According to Christian ideas the opponents of 
Christianity ought to be very bad people. There- 
fore Mr. Home endeavors to show them to be bad. 
Mr. Blount, for instance, he states, wanted to 



346 THE SAFE SIDE. 

marry his deceased wife's sister and Voltaire was 
wicked enough to want his book read whether it 
was believed or not. In short, outside of the 
system Mr. Home could make no argument or 
offer the least evidence. His extended work sup- 
plies another illustration of the fact that, to make 
an argument in support of the many doctrines 
consequent upon belief in the divinity of Christ, 
at least some one or more of them must be accepted 
as true before anything can be said at all. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

INERTIA OF IDEAS. 



OUR thoughts move quickly only over grounds 
which they have traversed before. The 
wires or track must have been previously laid, 
otherwise the mind is the slowest of the slow. 
Originality is far less common than seems to be 
generally supposed, and it also nearly always 
consists of but the least advance into that which 
was unknown before. All great improvements 
of every nature are results of the but slightly new 
ideas of many different people. The man who 
thought of placing the eye near the point of the 
needle showed, in that, one of the chief original- 
ities in the sewing machine. The true inventor 
of reaping and mowing machines was the man 
who thought of the zigzag scythe, working like a 
saw between extended fingers. Honor should, 
consequently, be given to originality according 
to the effect it produces, no matter how simple 
the idea may be. Injustice has often been done 
through not recognizing this fact. Railroad 
companies, as an illustration, lost millions of 
dollars through the want of a connected rail, but 
when that object was accomplished by the fish- 



348 THE SAFE SIDE. 

plate they could not bring themselves to give the 
inventor his due credit, because the idea was so 
simple. 

Original ideas are not always of a nature to 
advance mankind. Those who have them are 
few and those who give the public the benefit of 
them are fewer still. A man may never have 
had an original idea in his life and yet be an in- 
telligent and successful man. There is the same 
difference between original ideas and those in com- 
mon use that there is between the civil engineers 
and plodding laborers who slowly survey the route, 
lay the rails, and work the construction train, and 
the great commerce and travel that afterwards 
pass over it. Individuals may have passed over 
the ground before and let valuable original ideas 
die with them, for at best they are seldom favora- 
bly received and their introduction is laborious. 

The rarity of new ideas is well illustrated in 
the present manner of constructing the breech- 
loading rifle. Men have gloried in their fire- 
arms, and, since their introduction, some of the 
best minds in every age have given them their 
careful study. Wealth has awaited those who 
could improve them. And yet the breech-loaders, 
but recently introduced, are so simple that we can 
but wonder they were not thought of at the first 
use of the original blunderbuss. But it has taken 
over four hundred years for the slowly moving 
mind to advance to the present perfection of that 
much-thought-over instrument. 



INERTIA OF IDEAS. 349 

The tardiness in the discovery of the art of 
printing also illustrates this natural human tend- 
ency to follow closely the beaten track. For a 
number of thousand years only the most intelligent 
could write, and large numbers of this class, dur- 
ing all that time, were copying vast numbers of 
manuscripts, before the simple idea of printing, 
as first employed, was thought of. Even the 
simple improvement in writing of leaving a blank 
space between the words was not thought of within 
a lapse of time longer than the Christian era. 

It is well understood that those in authority 
must feel their way carefully in introducing new 
measures of government. The importance of this 
is so great that, in many instances, men whose 
abilities would have otherwise made them desir- 
able officers have been rejected because of their 
too great precipitancy in employing untried meas- 
ures. Human progress requires even more care 
in this respect. Every step needs to be carefully 
considered before adoption, and the more ignorant 
we are the greater is the necessity for this caution. 
A vessel among rocks and shoals may not spread 
its canvas as confidently as upon the high sea, and 
it would better remain stationary than not go right 
when it does move. So in human progress, its 
g^uidance was far above the intelligence of man 
at a time when he most needed that guidance. 
But our Creator so constructed the mind as to 
secure that end. We are made to cling to the old 
ideas we are familiar with until we shall clearly 



350 THE SAFE SIDE. 

see the better ideas that should replace them. // 
is more important that public customs and laws should 
possess a certain amount of stability than that the ideas 
■underlying thefn should be correct. 

Nor is it practicable for ideas to advance in one 
branch of knowledge and remain stationary in all 
others. For instance, if prehistoric men should 
have advanced to modern customs and ideas of 
humanity, but should otherwise have remained as 
they were, their humane treatment of captives 
would then have worked them more suffering than 
their cruelties did. Many acres per man were 
then needed for his support, and it was far better 
that the population be kept down and their phys- 
ical and mental powers stimulated to exertion by 
frequent wars than that that depletion should be 
the work of famine and pestilence. 

In the government of a nation no questions 
arise that will not, in their simple forms, be found 
within the competency of one person, but large 
numbers magnify and complicate questions to a 
degree that often carries them beyond the power 
of the authorities to solve. A simple walk, for 
instance, of a few miles, becomes a question that 
calls for superior experience and executive ability 
when a hundred thousand men are to be marched 
the same distance. Questions of state are but 
magnified questions of trade, protection, morals, 
health, etc. Time also has the same magnifying 
effect. A simple notion, that influences us in 
some one act, becomes an important question 



INERTIA OF IDEAS. 35 I 

when it is to be carried into execution throughout 
our lives, and if transmitted from generation to 
generation the operations of its undetected errors 
will become a serious evil. 

If, then, time and numbers so greatly compli- 
cate even simple questions, how great must be the 
wisdom that faced our race one way and guided us 
onward and upward through all the vast ages of 
the past and through all the depths of our own 
ignorance and failures. Changed conditions on 
the earth's surface would call for and develop 
in animals different powers, but not necessarily 
superior intellectual powers. On the contrary, it 
was possible in some instances for the mind to 
retrograde. Nevertheless, from the remote past 
mental changes have been in the direction of 
higher intelligence. This highly important re- 
sult has been effected by two laws of the mind, 
whereby the young in every age adopt the govern- 
ing ideas of their progenitors and hence secure 
such slight increase of intelligence as may have 
been acquired. 

One of these laws consists in causing the mind 
to be impressed with varying degrees of power. 
We know, for instance, of the accidents with 
which we are liable to meet upon steam cars, but 
are not deterred thereby from traveling in them. 
If, however, we pass a place where an accident 
has just occurred and see the bodies of those who 
have been killed, our confidence will be much 
shaken. But those who have passed through an 



352 THE SAFE SIDE. 

accident remember what they saw with horror, 
though the scene was of but short duration, and 
they are often so keenly alive to such dangers that 
for years thereafter they travel on the cars with 
dread. In all these instances it is the same fact 
impressed upon the mind with varying degrees of 
power. 

The mind may be equally deeply impressed 
through pleasant associations, and also by time, as 
well as when a number of mental faculties all tend 
to the same end. A thing will be more powerfully 
impressed upon the mind when learned through 
two or three senses than through one, A man 
may witness the operation of some machine and 
feel confident that he could work it, but one short 
trial at the time would fasten the knowledge in 
his mind in less time than is possible through ob- 
servation alone. 

The other law referred to consists in making 
our minds most impressible in youth, at which 
time we receive our ideas from our elders. We 
thus not only inherit ideas, but the largest part of 
our daily acts and sentiments are governed by 
them, and by them the public mind, through all 
time and in all conditions of development, has 
been made homogeneous and continuous. Like 
the sweepings in a gold-beater's room, all that ex- 
perience should teach is preserved for the modicum 
of gold or of truth contained therein, and like that 
gold the truth will be extracted by a higher and 
different process. After physical superiority, the 



INERTIA OF IDEAS. 353 

greatest power will be with those whose govern- 
ing ideas are the best. These ideas are often un- 
alterable through many generations; they may 
never have been wholly correct, but so deeply 
and, above all, so generally impressed upon the 
mind are they that reason affects their errors as 
little as the waves of the sea do the rocks, though, 
like those waves, each will in time wear respec- 
tively errors as well as rocks away. 

Time and numbers will magnify the many 
errors these inherited ideas contain; their evil 
effects will accumulate and become conspicuous, 
and, like the moraine at the foot of a glacier, be a 
growing obstruction to further progress until they 
are overcome. The impressive power of inherited 
ideas will be weakened in the minds of the most 
experienced and thoughtful, and under their 
widening influence those errors will be slowly 
corrected. These corrections must not only have 
the approval of the most advanced men of their 
times, but they must have quite general appro- 
val. Thus it is that nature's conservation is ef- 
fected by an arrangement that retains all prog- 
ress and winnows out errors by the slow process 
of hard experience, supplemented, in an advanced 
state, by reason. 

The greatest power of inherited ideas lies in 
their universality, and, however erroneous they 
may be, they will go on forever if reason or the 
lessons of experience are in any way suppressed. 
The truth or falsity of ideas so impressed has no 
23 



354 THE SAFE SIDE. 

influence on this mental law. Errors may be so 
strongly impressed upon the mind before we know 
they are errors that after learning what should 
have undeceived us we will still cling to them 
because of the lighter impressive power of our 
later though better knowledge. 

Our reliance upon the value of gold is an illus- 
tration of the great power of universally inherited 
ideas. Comment has often been made of the fact 
that gold, except as money, was of but little use and 
that its great value existed only in the mind. 
Nevertheless that seemingly baseless belief in the 
nature of the value of gold causes by its univer- 
sality this metal to possess by far the most sub- 
stantial and unchangeable value of any property 
known. 

These universally inherited ideas are superior 
to the laws of any nation, and they could not be 
obliterated by any united action that could be 
brought to bear upon them. Neither is it possible 
for any nation by its laws to hold the public mind 
with a power equal to the power of inherited ideas 
that are quite universal. 

The superior impressive power of inherited 
ideas is responsible for much that is inconsistent 
in our conduct. Reason and facts that we learn 
later in life (and which ought to demolish certain 
inherited ideas) do not immediately have that ef- 
fect, the consequence being that we either act a 
double part or admit the truth of the one while 
being governed by the other. The Christian re- 



INERTIA OF IDEAS. 355 

ligion supplies by far the most numerous illustra- 
tions of this, for the reason that all our ideas con- 
nected with it are inherited and brought from such 
a remote past as to cause a wider divergence be- 
tween old and new ideas than can be found upon 
any other subject. A conspicuous illustration is 
exhibited in the difference between the effects 
which its adherents claim their religion has al- 
ways begot and the real effects as set forth in 
history. 

A further illustration is shown in our inherited 
ideas of the sanctity of hearing "the word of God" 
as promulgated in the church, as contrasted with 
studying the works of God as revealed by science. 
Simple, unsupported assertions, which are insult- 
ing to the intelligence of the Almighty and en- 
larged upon by a preacher who is often illiterate, 
are placed far above the acquirement of awe- 
inspiring facts discovered in the actual works of 
God. 

Christian doctrines possess the mind with greater 
power than the facts that disprove them, and these 
doctrines are removed but slowly even under the 
most convincing evidence. They became asso- 
ciated with so much that is dear to us, during 
those years when our minds are especially in- 
tended to be overpoweringly impressed, that no 
power of reason can for many years displace them 
and with some those erroneous impressions are 
never effaced. This law of the mind has not only 
taken the most prominent part in perpetuating 



356 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Christianity, but it has also taken a prominent part 
in sustaining certain doctrines within the system 
and is, also, responsible for the inability to re- 
suscitate old doctrines that have been rejected, 
even though well supported in the Bible. 

The doctrine of the Trinity is an illustration. 
The church has come down to us firmly seated in 
that faith, but the thousands who weekly bow 
their heads in conformity to it do not realize the 
fact that they are Trinitarians simply because the 
Emperor Theodosius was baptized in that belief 
just fifteen hundred years ago. He then and there 
prohibited any further discussion upon that sub- 
ject by making that belief the law. Arianism, 
which did not include the Holy Ghost, nor admit 
the Son's equality with the Father (Arians were 
Unitarians), was much the more popular belief in 
the church and predominated in Constantinople 
the capital. But Theodosius happened to be much 
away and accessible to Trinitarians, by whom he 
was converted to and baptized in that belief, at 
which time he issued the following edict: 

It is our pleasure that all the nations which 
are governed by our clemency and moderation 
should steadfastly adhere to the religion which 
was taught by St. Peter to the Romans, which 
faithful tradition has preserved and which is now 
professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, 
bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. 
According to the discipline of the apostles and the 
doctrines of the gospel, let us believe the sole 
deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
under an equal majesty and a pious Trinity. We 



INERTIA OF IDEAS. 357 

authorize the followers of this doctrine to assume 
the title of Catholic Christians; and, as we judge 
that all others are extravagant madmen, we brand 
them w^ith the infamous name of heretics and de- 
clare that their conventicles shall no longer usurp 
the respectable appellation of churches. Besides 
the condemnation of divine justice, they must ex- 
pect to suffer the severe penalties which our au- 
thority, guided by heavenly wnsdom, shall think 
proper to inflict upon them. 



The Catholics of Constantinople were animated 
wnth joyful confidence by the baptism and edict 
of Theodosius and they impatiently awaited the 
effect of his gracious promise. Their hopes w^ere 
speedily accomplished, and the emperor, as soon 
as he had finished the operations of the campaign, 
made his public entry into the capital at the head 
of a victorious army. The next day after his ar- 
rival, he summoned Damophilus to his presence 
and offered that Arian prelate the hard alternative 
of subscribing to the Nicene Creed or of instantly 
resigning to the orthodox believers the use and 
possession of the episcopal palace, the cathedral of 
St. vSophia, and all the churches of Constantinople. 

The zeal of Damophilus, which in a Catholic 
saint w^ould have been justly applauded, embraced, 
without hesitation, a life of poverty and exile, and 
his removal was immediately followed by the 
purification of the Imperial City. The Arians 
might complain, with some appearance of justice, 
that an inconsiderable congregation of sectaries 
should usurp the hundred churches which they 
were insufficient to fill, whilst the far greater part 
of the people was cruelly excluded from every 
place of religious worship. Theodosius was still 
inexorable; but, as the angels who protected the 
Catholic cause were only visible to the eyes of 
faith, he prudently reenforced those heavenly 



358 THE SAFE SIDE. 

legions with the more effectual aid of temporal 
and carnal weapons and the church of St. Sophia 
was occupied by a large body of the imperial 
guards. If the mind of Gregory was susceptible 
of pride, he must have felt a very lively satisfac- 
tion when the emperor conducted him through the 
streets in solemn triumph and with his own hand 
respectfully placed him on the archiepiscopal 
throne of Constantinople. But the saint (who 
had not subdued the imperfection of human 
virtue) was deeply affected by the mortifying con- 
sideration that his entrance into the fold was that 
of a wolf, rather than of a shepherd, and that the 
glittering arms which surrounded his person were 
necessary for his safety, and that he alone was the 
object of the imprecations of a great party, whom, 
as men and citizens, it was impossible for him to 
despise. He beheld the innumerable multitude 
of either sex and of every age who crowded the 
streets, the windows, and the roofs of the houses ; 
he heard the tumultuous voice of rage, grief and 
astonishment, and despair; and Gregory fairly 
confessed that on the memorable day of his instal- 
lation the capital of the east wore the appearance 
of a city taken by storm and in the hands of a 
barbarian conqueror. 

About six weeks afterwards, Theodosius declared 
his resolution of expelling from all the churches 
of his dominions the bishops and their clergy who 
should obstinately refuse to believe or at least to 
profess the doctrine of the Council of Nice. His 
lieutenant. Sapor, was armed with the ample 
powers of a general law, a special commission, 
and a military force, and this ecclesiastical revolu- 
tion was conducted with so much discretion and 
vigor that the religion of the emperor was estab- 
lished, without tumult or bloodshed, in all the 
provinces of the East. ' 



Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 



INERTIA OF IDEAS. 359 

Trinitarianism was thus forced upon the church 
and when a few generations had passed there nat- 
urally ceased to be further feeling upon the sub- 
ject. There was no opportunity for renewed dis- 
cussion for more than a thousand years, during 
which time, under the working of this natural law 
of the mind, that doctrine became as firmly seated 
in the church as Christianity itself. 

Our various mental tendencies drive us to the 
performance of necessary duties, and the strength 
of our inclination to perform those duties varies 
according to their importance and the difficulties 
to be overcome. Some of the commands of Christ, 
came in conflict with certain of those qualities of 
human nature too great for even, his most devout 
followers and were therefore ignored, or, rather, 
they were followed for a time and then abandoned, 
and, though those commands are set forth in the 
Bible in language that cannot be misunderstood, 
yet having once been suppressed they have, under 
the inertia of ideas, remained suppressed and dis- 
honored to this day. One of these commands was 
that his followers should be noncombatants. No 
other order of his is so full or so clearly stated. 
It is in the Sermon on the Mount, which church- 
men affect to so much admire, and is a part of those 
teachings which Christianity claims as particularl)' 
its own. Christ said (Matt, v): 

39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: 
but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, 
turn to him the other also. 



360 THE SAFE SIDE. 

40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and 
take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. 

41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a 
mile, go with him twain. 

When Christ commanded men to believe in him 
and be saved, he gave an order that was a matter 
of indifference to those who did not believe and 
but a question of supposed safety to those who did ; 
but, when he ventured to order that men should 
not resist a blow in the face, or protect their prop- 
erty, or fight for their country, he simply exposed 
his human weakness. Wherein he played upon 
and exaggerated the natural mental faculties, he 
succeeded ; but when he took direct issue with an 
important one he failed. 

The feelings now manifested toward John the 
Baptist supply another illustration of the mental 
law referred to. Even under Christian ideas, he 
was the next most important man to Christ. • He 
is credited with having received his divine au- 
thority direct from God and with having been 
guided by him in designating Jesus as the Christ. 

He uttered the first words in the Christian re- 
ligion. He baptized Jesus and is referred to by 
the other apostles as their superior. After him 
should come Feter, then Paul, then the Apostle 
John. This is the order in which they would nat- 
urally be placed, according to their own account. 
But, on the contrary, the Baptist is apparently 
placed below them all. Sf. John always means 
John the Apostle, At times some second or third 



INERTIA OF IDEAS. 36 I 

rate church is named in honor of John the Baptist, 
but in such instances it must be so stated in full 
and when churches are so named it is because 
there is already a Sf. John's in the vicinity. 
There had been an angry contention about the 
Baptist during a number of generations in the 
beginning, and that contention engendered sour 
feelings towards him and consequent neglect. 
But, though that contention or even a direct 
record of it has long since disappeared, yet that 
neglect under this law of inertia of ideas has been 
inherited from generation to generation to the 
present day. The Church is governed by those 
inherited ideas of the Baptist rather than by the 
ideas of him conveyed by the words of the New 
Testament. 

The undue study of the Latin and Greek lan- 
guages further exemplifies this mental law. They 
became dead languages at a time when Europe 
was sinking into ignorance, and they necessarily 
remained the written languages for several cen- 
turies, during all of which time those who aspired 
to any degree of learning were obliged to learn 
Latin at least. For several hundred years it was 
the only channel through which knowledge could 
be sought, and, as all those possessing any edu- 
cation understood Latin, and possibly Greek, a 
knowledge of those languages came in time to 
have a dignity peculiar to learning itself. The 
service of the church was also in Latin, which 
gave it some degree of religious reverence. In 



362 THE SAFE SIDE. 

this manner education and those languages became 
associated in the public mind as substantially one 
and the same thing ; and this idea, once thoroughly 
established, has continued long after the condi- 
tions that brought it into existence have passed 
away, 

I have undertaken to show that through super- 
stition gold was elevated in the mind to the high- 
est position as to its value. Subsequently there 
never was any reason for changing public ideas 
regarding it, and for many ages this law of the 
mind took part in holding those ideas unchanged, 
un-til, through barter, it grew to be valuable as a 
medium of exchange. 

When, therefore, investigation is stopped, by 
law or superstition or falsehood, or diverted by 
false issues, the original ideas, no matter how ab- 
surd they may be, will go on from generation to 
generation until the incubus that prevented in- 
dependent thought is removed. 

Ancient theological questions, that were such 
only through the less enlightened minds of past 
generations and were settled at the time through 
false issues, have, through this law of the mind, 
been fastened upon all generations since. Chris- 
tians have obscured the question of the divinity of 
Christ by their own endless wrangles over imper- 
ceptible trifles of certain articles of their own 
credulity, which are of no possible interest to any 
one until he is first convinced that Christ is the 
Son of God. When, fifteen hundred years ago, 



INERTIA OF IDEAS. 363 

the then quite powerful Church agitated through- 
out the Roman Empire their doctrine of the 
Trinity, it naturally left an impression upon the 
mind that the divinity of Christ was a long-settled 
thing, about which there could be no further dis- 
cussion. The uproar and extent of that issue ob- 
scured the true and important question, and, as 
Christianity then became both the law and the 
road to official favor, the people following that 
controversy generally embraced Christianity and 
safety from seizure of property in one and the 
same act. 

The power of the emperor was without limit. 
It extended over the lives and property of the peo- 
ple. The following incident, related by Gibbon, 
illustrates this power, as well as the character of 
the man who both extinguished Paganism and 
forced the doctrine of the Trinity upon the Church : 

The fiery and choleric temper of Theodosius 
was impatient of the dilatory forms of a judicial 
inquiry and he hastily resolved that the blood of 
his lieutenant should be expiated by the blood of 
the guilty people. Yet his mind still fluctuated 
beween the counsels of clemency and of revenge ; 
the zeal of the bishops had almost extorted from 
the reluctant emperor the promise of a general 
pardon; his passion was again inflamed by the 
flattering suggestions of his minister Rufinus, and 
after Theodosius had dispatched the messengers 
of death he attempted, when it was too late, to 
prevent the execution, of his orders. The punish- 
ment of a Roman city was blindly committed to 
the undistinguishing sword of the barbarians and 
the hostile preparations were concerted with the 



364 THE SAFE SIDE. 

dark and perfidious artifice of an illegal conspiracy. 
The people of Thessalonica were treacherously in- 
vited, in the name of their sovereign, to the games 
of the circus, and such was their insatiate avidity 
for these amusements that every consideration of 
fear or suspicion was disregarded by the numer- 
ous spectators. As soon as the assembly was com- 
plete the soldiers, who had secretly been posted 
round the circus, received the signal, not of the 
races, but of a general massacre. The promis- 
cuous carnage continued three hours, without dis- 
crimination of strangers or natives, of age or sex, 
of innocence or guilt. The most moderate ac- 
counts state the number of the slain at seven 
thousand, and it is affirmed by some writers that 
more than fifteen thousand victims were sacrificed 
to the manes of Both eric. A foreign merchant, 
who had probably no concern in his murder, of- 
fered his own life and all his wealth to supply the 
place of one of his sons; but while the father hesi- 
tated with equal tenderness, while he was doubtful 
to choose and unwilling to condemn, the soldiers 
determined his suspense by plunging their dag- 
gers at the same moment into the breasts of the 
defenseless youths. The apology of the assassins, 
that they were obliged to produce the prescribed 
number of heads, serves only to increase, by an 
appearance of order and design, the horrors of the 
massacre, which was executed by the commands 
of Theodosius. The guilt of the emperor is ag- 
gravated by his long and frequent residence at 
Thessalonica. The situation of the unfortunate 
city, the aspect of the streets and buildings, the 
dress and faces of the inhabitants, were familiar 
and even present to his imagination, and Theo- 
dosius possessed a quick and lively sense of the 
existence of the people whom he had destroyed. 

The polytheists of those times had but little 
feeling upon the question of accepting Christian- 



INERTIA OF IDEAS. 365 

ity. The}^ courteously acknowledged the gods of 
other nations and would as freely accept the Chris- 
tian religion, the most objectionable feature being 
the necessity of rejecting their own superstition 
with it. But even this was comparatively a small 
matter, and when the edicts and feelings of the 
emperor demanded their conversion it was a 
simple matter for them to embrace Christianity; 
for, unless this course were pursued, there was 
not a man in that vast empire who was not at the 
mercy of some church officer or any party whose 
interest could be advanced by persecution and 
seizure of property. Furthermore, the church 
was then doing nothing to convince the pagan 
population, for at that time all the intellectual 
power it could bring to bear was expended upon 
such questions as the st?tgle or double nature or in- 
carnation of Christy tra7isubstantiation^ images^ etc. 
These were elevated into questions of the highest 
magnitude and the bitterness of feeling engen- 
dered by them often led to riots and bloodshed. 
But none of these enigmas has the least bearing 
upon the question of the divinity of Christ or of 
religion or of morality. They are false issues in 
every sense and have through long ages been an 
imposition upon the public by misleading them 
into a supposition that in those controversies was 
witnessed a great display of learning and piety. 
Sovasthasthe accumulation of such matter be- 
come that even the word " learned" as applied to 
churchmen is largely such only within the system. 



366 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Among the many edicts issued by Theodosius 
in the interest of the church was one by which he 
finally made Christianity the religion of the state, 
and this was issued the same year as the massacre 
of the Thessalonians. This edict of Theodosius 
was enforced with great vigor by Justinian nearly 
one hundred and fifty years later. That emperor 
finished the work by seeking pagans in out-of- 
the-way places and obliging them to accept Chris- 
tianity. In one mountainous district alone 70,000 
pagans were thus forced to profess Christianity 
and be baptized. He also vastly increased the 
personal interest of that religion by placing all 
municipal governments in the hands of bishops 
and other church officers.^ 

The power of any general government and the 
importance of its measures so greatly overshadow 
any one of its municipal governments that we 
naturally underrate the importance of the latter; 
but, with the exception of a comparatively few 
statesmen of national reputation, every citizen has 
greater personal interest in the affairs of his 
municipality than he has in. the general govern- 
ment. The powers of those many local govern- 
ments are divided among so many officers, each 
of whom has jurisdiction over so little territory, 
that the magnitude of the importance of the whole 
is lost sight of. When Justinian put all municipal 
governments into the hands of the church he del- 
egated to it greater pov/er and far greater official 

1 Guizot's History of Civilization in Europe. 



INERTIA OF IDEAS. 367 

patronage than he retained for himself. Few 
citizens ever had occasion to come in personal con- 
tact with the emperor, but this new power given 
the church did reach each and all, and through its 
local tyranny and the edicts of the emperor there 
could be no safety for the pagan population, of 
which the largest part of the empire was still 
composed/ It was immediately following these 
edicts that the pagan population turned to Chris- 
tianity, not from any spirit of loving kindness or 
any new light going to prove that Christ was the 
Son of God, but from personal interest and fear of 
church authorities. 

This was success enough to have filled their 
wildest ambition ; there hardly remained a power 
for churchmen to ask for, and it ought to have 
been the dawn of their promised era of love, en- 
lightenment, and peace; but actually it extin- 
guished the dimming twilight of mental liberty 
and inaugurated a reign of hypocrisy and fear. It 
placed over the Roman people a far-reaching, 
bigoted tyranny, under which Christendom sank 
into the night of the Dark Ages. This retrogres- 
sion of civilization occurred in Christian countries 
only. The Mohammedans during that time ad- 
vanced from a semisavage state to a high degree 
of intelligence and refinement. 



* Gibbon estimates that at the conversion of Constantine, 
about two-thirds of a century before the baptism of Theo- 
dosius, only about one -twentieth of the inhabitants of the 
Empire were Christians. 



368 THE SAFE SIDE. 

The power over the public mind which was 
given to the church by the edicts of Justinian has 
been not only successfully retained, but increased, 
and throughout all the succeeding centuries, un- 
til within about one hundred and fifty years, has 
been sufficient to insure death to any opponent of 
church government. Even Charlemagne, about 
four hundred years later, by an edict pronounced 
the pain of death against those who refused bap- 
tism or even ate flesh during Lent. * This was four 
hundred to five hundred and sixty years after the 
birth of Christ, and, though the church was large, 
its success up to that time had not been extraor- 
dinary. This was its great start and made so un- 
der a combination of false issues, indifference, and 
the power of the emperors. Christianity was 
largely imposed upon the people within the em- 
pire, while outside of it its acceptance was often 
made a consideration in treaties. As late as the 
year 918 France ceded Normandy to the Normans 
for certain considerations, one of them being that 
the Normans accept Christianity.^ This was only 
a little over one hundred years before Willi an. 
the Conqueror was born. 

One of the self-imposed duties of Christians is 
to spread the gospel in every land. They are 
educated into a double motive for so doing: It is 
falsely held to be the command of Christ and they 
are also taught that Christianity and enlighten- 

' State of Europe in the Middle Ages, by Henry Hallam, 

LL.D., F.R.A.S. 



INERTIA OF IDEAS. 369 

ment go hand in hand ; that it is the true way to 
civilize any people. Under this double incentive 
they have expended through many centuries vast 
sums of money and have also endeavored by force 
to support and extend it. If the Christians' claims 
be true, it also had for its help the power and 
favor of God. But, with these actual and sup- 
posed advantages, they have not been able to ex- 
tend their religion beyond the succeeding nations 
and their offshoots covered by Theodosius's edicts. 
They have not even been able to retain all of the 
territory they then occupied. 

Taking their wealth and power through long 
ages into consideration and their own professed 
most cherished duty, they have no cause for pride 
in the spread of Christianity. Excepting in the 
extreme north of Europe there are no Christian 
believers to-day but the descendants of less than 
half of those who accepted Christianity at the ex- 
tinction of paganism in the Roman Empire. They 
have since lost the territory in Asia and Africa 
embraced in that empire and gained the then 
barbarians in the extreme north of Europe. Of 
course the numbers have vastly increased through 
increase of population and the territory has been 
greatly extended by the discovery of America, 
Australia, etc. During all this time believers in 
Christ have been made so only by impressions 
made upon the mind of youth in countries where 
that belief has been general. In the great ma- 
jority of cases the belief must be inherited to ob- 
24 



370 THE SAFE SIDE. 

tain a footing at all. Reason, from first to last, 
has not only not been appealed to, but it has 
been suppressed. The experience of Dr. Wallace 
while living with savages led him to question 
" whether the mental and moral status of our popu- 
lation has not on the average been lowered, and 
whether the evil has not overbalanced the good." ' 

But, if the magnitude of effects produced by a 
pretense is proof of its truth, then we ought all 
to be Mohammedans, for the imposition of that 
superstition upon the people was far more suc- 
cessful than that of Christianity. It originated 
over five hundred years after the birth of Christ, 
and in two hundred years it had become the great- 
est power in the world and threatened the extinc- 
tion of Christianity. 

Confucius, also, has had in time probably more 
followers than Christ. He lived six or seven hun- 
dred years earlier, and though the number of his 
adherents in any one generation were not so great 
they have been numerous enough in its longer 
career to swell the grand total to a number rival- 
ing Christianity. 

Nothing will so intensely enlist a man's feel- 
ings in a cause as to fight for it. No cause was 
ever fought for under more romantic and exciting 
circumstances than Christianity was in the cru- 
sade wars. Communication between the different 
countries then was much more difficult than in 



Malay Archipelago, by Alfred Russell Wallace, ll.d., 



INERTIA OF IDEAS. 37 1 

our time. A journey from western Europe to 
Palestine was as great an undertaking as a trip 
around the world would be now. Manners and 
customs also were in greater variety than in the 
same countries now. Under those circumstances 
the love of adventure would alone be a powerful 
inducement to thousands to join the crusade. 
Absence from those we love will draw out the 
most tender feelings, which will be intensified 
when to long absence are added both great dis- 
tance and danger, and those feelings would be- 
come attached to the cause that drew them forth. 
Those far distant campaigns extended over a space 
of two hundred years, a time long enough to make 
its hardships and glories a part of the history of 
every family in Europe. 

The romance and adventures attending those 
campaigns supplied causes for excitement and en- 
thusiasm such as have never been known in history. 
Generation after generation of youths grew to 
manhood with their minds filled with the exploits 
of their ancestors, some of whom, to the last cru- 
saders, would seem to be so remote as to be quite 
in ancient times. To have been a crusader was the 
highest glory of a soldier. Palestine became asso- 
ciated in the mind as second only to heaven. It 
then became " the most Holy Land" and was doubly 
endeared to the people through the suffering and 
death of the many hundred thousands who threw 
their lives away in efforts to secure its possession. 

It is well known that, when the mind of a 



3/2 THE SAFE SIDE. 

mother is intensely occupied with any subject for 
a number of months preceding the birth of a child, 
such child will have a great development of those 
mental faculties then excited in the mother. The 
great Napoleon is one of the most notable illustra- 
tions of this. His mother had an unusual experi- 
ence in a military campaign preceding his birth, 
during which time her mind must have been filled 
with the various details of the campaign. 

During those crusades there was every reason 
for the minds of hundreds of thousands of mothers, 
so situated, to be most intensely occupied and ex- 
cited about Jesus Christ and Christianity, and the 
history of those nations of Europe whence the 
crusades issued shows that that superstition de' 
veloped at that time into a monomania. 

But, while these several causes operated to 
intensify a devotion to that superstition in vast 
numbers, other causes had a contrary effect upon 
another smaller class of men whose minds were 
enlarged and whose knowledge was increased by 
the wider experiences which those campaigns gave 
to them. This divergence in ideas made the later 
contentions and cruelties of the church possible. 
Guizot ' says : 

Though begun under the name and influence of 
religious belief, the crusades deprived religious 
ideas, I shall not say of their legitimate share of 
influence, but of their exclusive and despotic pos- 
session of the human mind. 



History of Civilization in Europe. 



INERTIA OF IDEAS. 373 

During the crusades Rome became a halting 
place for a great portion of the crusaders, either 
in going or returning. A multitude of laymen 
were spectators of its policy and manners and were 
ab^e to discover the share which personal interest 
had in religious disputes. 

Those returning crusaders who were enabled to 
tarry at Rome must necessarily have been of the 
wealthy class and limited in numbers, though 
large enough to sow the seed of those liberal ideas 
that culminated in the Reformation. 

The sky looks blue, not on account of what we 
see in the far distant space, but because of the air 
immediately around us. So it is with Christianity. 
Its histor}^, though seemingly full preceding the 
first crusade, is nevertheless quiet as compared to 
its history since. Those wars, under this com- 
bination of causes for excitement, gave that relig- 
ion an impetus that neither its crimes and cruel- 
ties, nor discoveries in science, have as yet been 
able to overcome. 

Those crusades, however, would not have been 
possible but for the feelings growing out of the 
wars and encroachments of the Mohammedans 
within the preceding four hundred years. One 
feature of the superstition of the latter was that 
its believers should extend it by means of the 
sword. Those who died fighting for that cause 
were made to believe that they would go at once 
to paradise with all their sins forgiven. With 
such an enemy and such sentiments there was no 
hope for Christianity under noncombatant princi- 



374 THE SAFE SIDE. 

pies. There were no longer any pagans to fight 
for it and those unnatural principles had to be 
abandoned. And yet Christians had a double 
motive for respecting them, for they were not only 
the commands of Christ, but the success of their 
religion had originally been owing largely to them. 
Rome had absorbed all the civilized nations of the 
world, and it could not be otherwise but. that the 
love of country, as applied to that empire, would, 
for at least a few generations, be exceedingly 
small, if, indeed, it existed at all, among the in- 
habitants of the recently conquered countries, 
particularly as Roman citizenship was elevated 
into a kind of nobility. The disposition to fight 
for the empire would-be small and even not pos- 
sessed at all by many. To all such, the noncom- 
batant principles of Christianity were inviting, for 
within the church they could escape a service that 
was repulsive to them. 

The noncombatant sentiments of the early Chris- 
tians, however, never stood in the way of their 
own aggressions. There was never much blood 
shed upon questions of Christian doctrines until 
they began to shed it themselves in their own in- 
ternal quarrels. 

When war begins argument ceases. Whatever 
the origin of war may be, the motives that draw 
in the rank and file of the army are in all instances 
the same. The love of their religion may have 
influenced a very few Christians to take part 
therein, but, whatever the motives were, those 



INERTIA OF IDEAS. 375 

religious wars in later times were seemingly for 
Christianity, and hence that which was love of 
glory, or love of country, or love of liberty, or 
love of plunder is now all credited to love for the 
Christian religion. For more than a thousand 
)"ears the most severe wars were more or less con- 
nected with Christianity, during which time those 
who denied its truthfulness were overwhelmed 
and lost in a sea of passion against which conten- 
tion was impossible. The religious feeling had 
but little to do with it. The truthfulness of any 
part of Christianity could not under any circum- 
stances be proven by wars, but they produced a 
far more powerful feeling than was possible in 
any other way. They were a series of false issues 
(as far as religion was concerned) from begin- 
ning to end, under which the divinity of Christ 
seemed to be proven beyond the possibility of 
doubt. 

On the other hand, there never has been any 
disposition to combat Christianity simply on the 
grounds of its doctrines. It has always been a 
matter of indifference with unbelievers, so much 
so that even in our time they generally remain 
silent rather than incur the opposition which those 
sentiments often create. If they remain silent 
now for such small reasons, how much less was 
their speaking probable when to do so was almost 
certain death. There is not now nor never has 
been any feeling except on one side of this ques- 
tion, and that is the side where the fear and 



376 THE SAFE SIDE. 

superstition lie. Both the excitement and interest 
have always been the Christian's own. The Ro- 
mans from the first regarded Christian doctrines 
with indifference and contempt, and that indiffer- 
ence at least has been a characteristic of all unbe- 
lievers to this day. The two or three instances of 
persecution encountered before the time of Con- 
stantine were not persisted in and operated to the 
advantage of the church. Excepting those short 
seasons Christianity never had serious official op- 
position. If at first there had been even moderate 
interest antagonistic to it, it would probably never 
have reached success enough to be known in 
history. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

CONVERSION. 



ONE of the numerous mysteries of the mind 
consists in its seeming connection with other 
minds. Its action in such cases is as though 
there was a 7?iental atmosphere — as some have ex- 
pressed it — through which the same thoughts are 
telegraphed simultaneously to all. Susceptibility 
to this varies in individuals, it being so great with 
some that in times of excitement their minds lose 
their individuality and are governed by the united 
thoughts of those with whom they are associated. 
This phenomenon necessarily can be exhibited 
only when a number of persons are assembled to- 
gether and somewhat excited upon one subject. 
That is all that is required; the subject itself is a 
matter of indifference. Panics in the army or in 
the market, or public enthusiasm upon some one 
subject, or excitement in revivals in churches are 
all manifestations of this mysterious external con- 
trol of the mind. The fact of this phenomenon 
is fully established, but no satisfactory scientific 
explanation has as yet been given for it. It is 
governed by some biological or psychological law 
as yet unknown. In the Mohammedan and Chris- 
tian religions great use has been made of this 



378 THE SAFE SIDE. 

mental peculiarity in establishing confidence in 
the truth of their doctrines. Those doctrines are 
well adapted to work up excitement, and the seem- 
ingly supernatural effect that follows is readily 
accepted as an exhibition of divine approval of 
one's own particular religion. Its action in the 
church has often stimulated the passive fears of 
moderate church attendants and led them into a 
supposition that they had experienced what is 
represented to them as being a change of heart. 
Previous belief is a necessary adjunct to the so- 
called conversion, as it is through the terrors 
embraced within that belief that the convert's 
fears are acted upon and his spirits correspond- 
ingly depressed. Any depression of spirits, no 
matter what caused it, will be followed by a reac- 
tion. This is a never-failing law of nature. 
Churchmen take advantage of this, or, more cor- 
rectly, are misled by this into representing such 
reaction to be a divine revelation of the truth or 
something of that nature. Large numbers have 
thus been made to believe they had experienced 
within themselves a change that was supernatural, 
not knowing that at that particular hour when 
they supposed they expei^ienced religion they simply 
experienced a reaction of feeling from previous 
doubts and fears, coupled with the phenomenon 
referred to. 

Necessarily those so-called converts have re- 
ceived no new light; they know the truth no better 
than they did before and have sustained no change 



CONVERSION. 379 

of disposition. They have, to a considerable ex- 
tent, lost control of their minds, under which they 
are led to join the church and subscribe to such 
articles of faith as are dictated to them, part of 
which they may never have read before. A per- 
son who was naturally religious might date his 
conversion from some particular revival, but he 
was, nevertheless, not improved thereby, as his 
natural religious propensities would have held 
him to what he believed to be his duty. Others, 
who have been temporarily weakly carried away 
by excitement at revivals and have made a mor- 
tifying exhibition of themselves, often go to the 
opposite extreme and reject all religious impulses. 
The following partial account of one of these 
mental phenomena at a revival — though an ex- 
treme case for intelligent people — is a fair repre- 
sentation of scenes very common at such meetings 
among the more ignorant. 

She would walk up and down the aisles with 
arms outstretched, eyes rolling, and in the great- 
est mental and physical excitement. Singling 
out some one on the outside, generally a man, she 
would go up to him and with a voice supernatu- 
rally grave would point her finger at him and say, 
" The Lord wants you. " This would be continued 
in some instances for fully five minutes, the vic- 
tim of her attention during this trying ordeal 
quaking with embarrassment and shame. When 
tired of thus harassing her crouching victim she'd 

return to the rostrum on which the Rev. H 

had thrown himself, and who in the mean time had 
kept up his agonizing groans and posturings, and 
clasping him in her arms would endeavor to raise 



3So ■ THE SAFE SIDE. 

him to his feet. A singing band of seven or eight 
women kept things awake by their shouting and 
singing. Miss K , during one of these meet- 
ings — which, by the way, began at 7 o'clock in 
the morning, continued all day and sometimes as 
late as midnight — tore the hat from her head, 
threw it with great energy upon the floor, and 
then deliberately lay down on the floor and rolled 
over it. The unoffending headgear was too gaudy 
for her now. She had become inspired. A third 
person who allowed herself to be carried away by 

excitement was Mrs. W. H . This lady is 

spoken of by all who know her as a modest, retir- 
ing, and exemplary woman. Her antics were 

similar to those of Miss K- and for vehemence 

and enthusiasm equaled an3^thing of the kind ever 
witnessed. She was beside herself and was un- 
conscious of what she was doing. 

As the days passed and these meetings con- 
tinued, the frenz}^ seemed to grow in intensity. 
No pen can describe the abando7i and recklessness 
of the leaders in this farce, and the country people 
flocked to the building from the surrounding 
country in such numbers that it was impossible to 
accommodate them in the hall. The whole town 
was ablaze with excitement. The cooler-headed 
church members and all of the outsiders were 
strong in their denunciation of the sacrilege, but 
no one felt it his duty to interpose any objections 
and the "show" went on. Days passed in this 
way, and the city hall was a pandemonium. The 
preacher and his leading helpers hardly took time 
to eat anything, and sleep was out of the question. 
They had haggard looks and bloodshot eyes, and 
many of the citizens shook their heads in dismay, 
wondering where the matter would stop and pre- 
dicting that the insane asylum would catch some 
of the performers. 

During one of the "spirited" sea?ices, when the 
groanings, lamentations, and contortions of the 



CONVERSION. 381 

pastor had been more vigorous than usual and 

when Mrs. , Miss , Miss , and Mrs. 

had outdone themselves in gesticulating, 

singing, and posturing, with agonized faces and 
tear-streaming eyes, a man in the audience was 
pounced upon by the preacher as a fit subject for 

"wrastling." This was C . He is wealthy 

and never squanders a cent for any purpose what- 
ever. As he was sitting there in the audience 

Pastor H espied him. Going to C , H 

said : " The Lord says for you to give up all of 
your possessions for the good of the church. Will 

you do it?" C , who had by this time come 

somewhat under the spell of fanaticism himself, 
responded in a feeble tone, "Yes." "Louder," 

demanded H . "Yes," responded C with 

a slightly increased accent. " Louder yet," cried 

H . "Yes, I will," answered C , "all but 

my two ponies." By this time C was stand- 
ing in the aisle, while H was literally " weep- 
ing on his neck. " Receiving the last reply H 

said, "The Lord commands me to thrust you 
aside," and, with a motion that would set a prize- 
fighter in ectasies of delight, he pushed the sub- 
missive C ten feet away, and he was onl}^ 

kept from falling to the floor by one of the audi- 
ence, who steadied him as he reeled backw^ard. 

The poor, misguided creatures fully believed 
there would be a Divine apparition, and even the 
unbelievers were staggered. They saw so much 
of the supernatural in the conduct of these people 
that they were prepared to see anything. The 
night passed, however, but no vision came, al- 
though seven of the faithful, including the pastor, 
got together in one corner of the hall and re- 
mained there praying, shouting, groaning, and 
gesticulating until 2 o'clock the next morning. 

The following night the pastor made a state- 
ment to the meeting to the effect that Sister H 's 

prophecy had been fulfilled ; that Christ had in- 



382 THE SAFE SIDE. 

deed manifested himself ; that in fact he appeared 

bodily. He explained that Sister C , whom 

he characterized as "my child" and whom he 
clasped at the same time in his arms, was the 
only person out of that little band of seven who 
had been permitted to see the dear savior. He 

explained further that" Sister C was kneeling- 

right there in the aisle, and after awhile the Lord 
came down. Right down by that post, wasn't it, 
sister?" asked the pastor. "Yes, sir," promptly 

and proudly answered Sister C , "right by that 

post. There was a bright light, and out of the 
light I saw the dear face of Jesus. His form was 
beautiful and he walked majestically," continued 
the good sister, and the faithful sighed that they 
had not been permitted to gaze on this divine 
picture. 

About this time the pastor went to labor with 

Dr. H , who was in the audience. Said he to 

H— : — : "I have a message from the Lord and 
he is displeased with you." The doctor calmly 
replied: "If the Lord has a message for me, I 
would rather he'd send it some other way." The 
pastor became furious and, rolling his eyes and 
towering beyond his natural height, he raised his 
arms to heaven and bellowed forth : " Send the 
angel of death to this unbeliever. " 

The pastor's favorite method of dispersing the 
meetings was, "The Lord says. Go home." This 
was the dismissal. One day, when the spirit was 
rather livelier than usual, he left his house and, 
taking a position on the principal corner of the 
town, shouted at the top of his voice: "The Lord 
says. Come to the hall." This racket was kept up 
for nearly five minutes. Getting tired of this out- 
door e'xercise, he went into the hall and, raising a 
window, craned his neck outside and repeated his 
injunction. "The Lord says, Come to the hall." 
In the meantime " the faithful" were gathering for 
another season of rejoicing. 



CONVERSION. 383 

Another illustration of conver.sion will be found 
in Senator Blair's speech published in the Con- 
gressional Record February 11, 1890: 

The religion of the region has in it few ele- 
ments of power for good. These people are not 
unbelievers. They believe in God and in the 
Bible. They may know little about either, and 
their belief may be only a superstitious regard, 
but they never doubt the existence of God nor the 
truth of the Bible. An infidel is rarely heard of 
among them ; I have known of but one. But re- 
ligion is scarcely thought of as a power making for 
righteousness. It is a scheme for opening the 
door of heaven, not for saving the soul from sin. 
It regards the place of the future life, not the 
character which fits for it. A dream in some way 
connecting itself with religion is considered one 
of the most satisfactory proofs of conversion, and 
good lung power one of the best means of express- 
ing spirituality. 

Once a year it is the intention of each church 
to have a " big meeting" or revival services. The 
people gather in crowds from miles around. 
Three or four or more ministers are present, well 
supplied with tobacco, but perhaps without a 
Bible. The preaching is in a peculiar singsong 
tone, which seems to be regarded as a necessity in 
preaching. The gesticulation is wild and furious. 
Preacher follows preacher, each bent on working 
himself and the congregation into a state of in- 
tense excitement, and before long it begins. Then 
follow scenes which words can not describe. 
Marching, jumping, rolling on the floor, embrac- 
ing, screaming, and above all and mingled with 
all the shrill singsong of the preacher, wildly 
seeking to raise the excitement to a higher and 
higher pitch. 

In the midst of one of these wild scenes in North- 
ern Alabama a few months since a somewhat un- 



384 THE SAFE SIDE. 

derwitted boy in his teens became very happy, 
and his vigorous shouting and bodily contortions 
were inspiring others to rise to greater heights of 
happiness and enthusiasm. 

Suddenly there was a lull and the voice of this 
lad came out clear and strong, and what he was 
shouting was understood for the first time. The 
inspiring sentiment which had seized hold of his 
mind and heart, and which he was shouting over 
and over in the religious ecstasy was this: " Run, 
chicken, with your head pecked off; ain't we hav- 
ing a good time?" 

As the excitement goes on the " conversions" 
begin. The converts press forward and take the 
minister by the hand as a sign of their desire to 
" jine" him ; they " jine the minister" instead of 
joining the church. They are baptized, and 
thenceforth are good church members. They go 
back to their homes when the "big meeting 
breaks," with no thought of living a new life and 
with no expectation on the part of anybody that 
they will. Their religion does not involve moral- 
ity, and everybody can afford to be religious. 

Although much is said of conversion to Chris- 
tianity and vast sums are expended for that pur- 
pose, there are nevertheless comparatively no con- 
verts made; for, while those in a Christian country 
always believed, those in pagan countries can 
never be made to. The reports of missionary 
societies show failure in this respect. They have 
made no progress in their various missionary sta- 
tions, except as they have been able to control the 
schooling of children and have them brought up 
in the faith the same as is done at home. But 
even by this slow and expensive process the num- 
ber of christianized pagans is exceedingly small. 



CONVERSION. 385 

There are instances of adults claimed as having 
been converted to Christianity, but their conver- 
sion is often of a doubtful character, it having 
been to their interest to affect conversion. It has 
been said that the pagans converted to Christianity- 
would weigh no more than the gold expended to 
convert them.' 

Christianity has never had a more convenient 
■missionary field than that afforded by the Onon- 
daga Indians in the State of New York. That 
small handful of pagans have been in the midst 
of a Christian country for a hundred years. For 
the last fifty years they have been surrounded by 
a dense and rich Christian population, a popula- 
tion that has donated money enough for missionary 
purposes to make every Indian of the tribe rich. 
Those Indians have traded and mingled with the 
whites all their lives and have been brought up 
almost within hearing of church bells. 

The following will show what has (not) been 
accomplished in converting them. Christian pa- 



' That high English Church dignitary, Canon Taylor, 
asserts that the effort to christianize the pagan world is a 
dreary, dismal, dreadful, and distressing failure. The 
disgusted, but candid canon does not content himself with 
merely making the assertion, but he appeals to the un- 
sympathetic logic of frigid and inexorable mathematics to 
sustain himself. He shows that at the rate the work is 
going on in India the natural increase of heathens in i 
year will require for its conversion the Christian effort of 
143 years; that in China the increase of i year will re- 
quire 27,000 years of effort to overcome the native belief 
at the rate the good work is going on ; that practically no 
inroads at all are made against Mohammedanism, and 
that return to the native religion is nearly as large as 
are the conversions. — Boston Investigator. 

25 



386 THE SAFE SIDE. 

tiencehas been exhausted, as well it might be, for 
its pretended revelations are too preposterous to 
be believed even by the simplest adult when un- 
biased by early training : 

Bishop Huntington, of Central New York, is out 
in a remarkable letter with reference to the shock- 
ing condition of things among the Indian popula- 
tion of what is known as the Onondaga reservation, 
in this State, some seven miles from Syracuse. 
He says : " Society there stagnates in barbarism ; 
all advance toward civilization is arrested ; the 
motives which prompt men to action and thrift 
fail; hope is discouraged; the natural indolence 
of the Indian has no spur ; they are virtually no 
traders; agriculture as a science is unknown; a 
few framed and painted houses are built by Chris- 
tians, but the pagans are for the most part content 
with huts and cabins; fences are rude; roads are 
scarcely passable; rubbish litters the dooryards; 
swine roam at large; meals are irregular; the 
women cling to their heathen style in dress and 
manners; they are made to work in the field. 
Their worship is a howling superstition [!] and, 
worse yet, wedlock is neither respected nor prac- 
ticed. Yet all this," adds the good bishop, "is 
right in the heart of the State of New York, and 
hitherto it has scarcely been alluded to in sermons 
and appeals and in journals and assemblies, where 
Christians are besought to take pity on a foreign 
heathendom and money is given to send mission- 
aries of Christ to all the corners of the earth." 

There is now a bill before the legislature which 
contemplates the breaking up of this reservation 
and the bishop is decidedly in favor of its passage. 
The Onondaga Indian is a lazy vagabond, and the 
bishop thinks it is high time that civil laws as 
well as Christianity should set him about some 
useful business, and he does not hesitate to say 



CONVERSION. 387 

that " the sentimentalism which invests his indo- 
lence and filth with the romance of a bygone hero- 
ism can do him nothing but harm." 

Notice that when an Indian has a good house or 
has advanced a little more than the average he is 
claimed as a Christian. It is a theory with the 
church that there is little or no difference between 
civilization and Christianity, while in practice the 
latter is placed above civilization which it will 
hold back rather than that its doctrines shall be 
shaken. It is willing to grant its diploma of 
civilization to any who profess Christianity. 
Those Indians supply the most flattering example 
that the church can produce of the works of so- 
cieties whose labors to civilize are based upon the 
theory that that end may be attained by preaching 
"Christ and him crucified." They also supply 
another illustration of the fact that none ever be- 
lieve unless that belief has been impressed upon 
the mind by parents or guardians or other in- 
structors in youth. 

The Chinese in this country present a still more 
inviting field for conversion of pagans to Chris- 
tianity, because of their greater intelligence, and 
items appear in the papers from time to time that 
imply that some progress in that respect is being 
made. But the following account' shows that 
there are no such conversions and also illustrates 
the fraudulent character of all such pagan preten- 
sions : 



1 Chicago Tribune, Dec. 13, i88§. 



388 THE SAFE SIDE. 



CHRISTIANIZED CHINESE. 

New York, Dec. 12 — [Special.] — The chris- 
tianization of the Chinese in this city has had a 
discouragement. Six separate Sunday schools for 
Chinamen have been established here, ranging 
from the fashionable mission of Grace Church to 
the class gathered by Miraculous Simpson, a faith 
curer, who operates on his own account in the edi- 
fice which the late Salmi Morse fitted up for a 
production of the " Passion Play. " All together 
about 200 Chinamen have been recruited by these 
evangelists, andit was supposed from the readiness 
of the Orientals to assert their firm belief in or- 
'thodoxy that the work was highly successful. But 
this week is devoted by the Chinese quarter to a 
glorification of Joss in a new temple provided for 
him. The prosperity of the Chinese in New York 
is ascribed by them wholly to the benignity of 
their heathen god and they are worshiping him 
with intense fervor. Investigation shows that 
few, if any, of the avowed converts to Christianity 
have kept aloof from the ceremonies. The truth 
seems to be, as learned from some of the Chinese 
merchants and especially from the Chinese consul, 
that tlie attendants at the Sunday school are there 
purely for the sake of getting education in the 
English language. The consul declares positively 
that there is not a single sincere Christian among 
them and that they do not dream of turning from 
Joss as their great divinity. A few may mix a 
little of Christian doctrine with their native relig- 
ion, but they invariably give supremacy to Joss. 

Christianity originated among the most enlight- 
ened people upon the earth, and it is owing to that 
circumstance only that it is among that class to- 
day. Mankind advanced, not because of Chris- 
tianity, but in spite of it. But true to its custom, 



CONVERSION. 389 

to clgim everything and prove nothing, the church 
claims civilization as its work. In the nineteen 
hundred years of its existence, it cannot produce 
an example of one item of human advancement 
for v;hich we are indebted to doctrines growing out 
of assertions that Christ was the Son of God. On 
the contrary, progress in every science has been 
combated because of the never-failing conflict with 
the ignorant authors of that assertion. (See Hon. 
Andrew D. White's late writings upon this sub- 
ject.) 

The church is from necessity confined to the nar- 
row ideas of its founders, the consequence being 
that churchmen's labors and requirements are 
confined to an exceedingly narrow intellectual 
range, and when these simple demands are com- 
plied with their work is finished and their labors 
thenceforth consist in a pedagogical interference 
with the minds and movements of those who do 
not comply with their ideas. They are severe 
only in their denunciation of others. Neither 
can churchmen originate reforms; the pretended 
supernatural source of their sentimental require- 
ments does not admit of it, but they unhesitatingly 
claim all good works as a natural result of those 
requirements, regardless of their own history con- 
nected therewith. We have an illustration of this 
in the great temperance reform started in this 
country by five drunkards in Baltimore in 1840. 
That movement did not originate in the church ; 
but, on the contrary, its greatest opposition was 



390 THE SAFE SIDE. 

from within that body and the most powerful 
arguments against it derived their strength from 
numerous incidents related in the Bible. Nor are 
churchmen even now agreed upon that subject, 
there being quite a difference in particular be- 
tween those in Europe and in this country. The 
great merits of that reform, however, are fully 
recognized and consequently churchmen try to 
appropriate the credit by coupling it with Chris- 
tianity and implying that it is the result of its 
teachings. The American churches' position upon 
this question is a reflection upon the virtue of 
Christians in all past ages. The great reformer, 
John Knox, when he found he was going to die, 
ordered the head of a hogshead of claret wine 
knocked in, for the free use of those who came to 
see him in his sickness. Drunkenness has always 
been common in the church and it is not uncom- 
mon in it now. 

Near the Rocky Mountains there are Indians 
who, as yet, are nearly as unfamiliar with civil- 
ization as they were when America was discov- 
ered. They have probably never seen a church 
and missionary accounts of Christianity must have 
only increased their confidence in their own super- 
stition, for in that, at least, they saw themselves 
as far advanced as the whites. Their veneration 
was evidentl)' impressed by the grandeur of na- 
ture, and they worshiped God by worshiping it. 
In doing this, they traveled three thousand miles 
to perform a ceremony that was traditional with 



CONVERSION. 391 

them, and performed only at long intervals of 
time, the last instance having been upon the shore 
of the Gulf of Mexico, two hundred years before. 
If their ceremonies, as related in the following 
account, had been performed in a cathedral, with 
rich regalia and the pomp and vanity peculiar to 
such places, they would not only have equaled, but 
would even have surpassed, those of the Christian 
church. 

Contrast, also, this ceremony with scenes in re- 
vival meetings, and particularly with the one just 
quoted : 

Boston, March 28. — The Zuiii Indian priests, 
who arrived here a week ago and have since been 
the lions of the town, to-day performed the reli- 
gious ceremony which is the main object of their 
visit here, namely, the procuring of water from 
the ocean of the rising sun for use in their rites 
at home. They went to Deer Island in the city 
steamer at the invitation of Mayor Green, accom- 
panied by about three hundred prominent gentle- 
men with ladies, and on arriving at the island 
went directly to ten tents, erected at the eastern 
extremity. Presently the Indians emerged, their 
faces smeared with paint of various hues and their 
hands full of feathers and various implements to 
be used in the observances to follow. Mr. Gush- 
ing, their guide, who donned his Indian costume 
before leaving the boat, came with them, also in 
full paint and feathers. He wore what looked 
like a bearskin cap, from beneath which hung 
down over his shoulders long, flowing hair. His 
companions wore colored handkerchiefs tied 
tightly arotmd their foreheads. The old chief of 
the tribe, the high priest, leading, the others fol- 
lowed after him in single file, Mr. Gushing being 



392 THE SAFE SIDE. 

fifth in the line, and with slow steps they proceeded 
towards the water. There was no levity on their 
part, but solemn seriousness was in their faces. 
Directly in front of one tent was a gravelly beach. 
A short distance to the right, however, there was 
a low point of rocks, which, as the tide was out, 
were bare, and appeared, while offering an oppor- 
tunity for the chiefs to get a little nearer to the 
deep sea, to be also a more convenient point than 
the shelving beach from which to dip the sacred 
water. So they turned in that direction, and a 
large crowd surrounding them hurried in a pro- 
miscuous rush, anxious to secure sightly points for 
observation. Indians and spectators picked their 
way along, stepping from rock to rock, till they 
were out two or three hundred feet from the shore. 
Then the Indians squatted in a small semicircle, 
and the spectators, balancing themselves upon the 
smooth and slippery rocks, formed a larger semi- 
circle behind them. An enterprising photographer 
set up his camera directly in front of the pious 
priests, about ten feet in front of them, and pre- 
pared for business. The priests had already be- 
gun upon their sacred services, each chanting in 
his turn a prayer to the god of the ocean, the 
mother of the ocean, and the father of the world. 
At the end of every sentence were words which 
interpreted mean, " Make the road of life for our- 
selves and for our children to be prolonged," and 
to represent the roads the sacred meal, composed 
of ground white corn and sea shells, was scattered 
in rows. Meanwhile the tide was rapidly rising, 
and so the people on the ends of the semicircle 
found their position becoming uncomfortable, and, 
before they were really aware how uncomfortable 
it was, the rocks on which they stood were sur- 
rounded with water and the little waves washing 
over the tops of them. The photographer was sud- 
denly knee deep in water and one or two waves 
larger than the others caused a number of people 



CONVERSION. 393 

to lose their equilibrium and step overboard. A 
general backward movement began about this 
time, and sedate gentlemen of divinity, professors, 
and less distinguished personages jumped about 
with more or less agility to escape from the ap- 
proaching flood. Finally the Indians were left 
alone. They were wet, but were filled with deep 
religious fervor and delight, for they believed that 
the coming of the waters was to them a marked 
token of divine favor. Mr. Gushing interrupted 
the service to suggest to them that they retire to a 
more comfortable spot, but the high priest turned 
to him and said : " Be firm. The waters come 
upon us by the will of the gods. The sun hears 
us. God hears. This is a beautiful manifestation 
of the truth of our religion, and you must be pre- 
pared for it. Even if the waves rise and take you 
in it will be well." The chanting of prayers 
occupied about fifteen minutes, and the Divine 
Providence may be seen in the fact that the 
founders of this observance centuries ago did 
not make the services as long again, or to-day 
they would all have been drowned by the rising 
tide. The blowing of cigarette smoke into a tray- 
ful of feathers followed, and then the high priest 
threw the feathers out on the water as tokens of 
gratitude to the gods of the ocean for the favors 
bestowed. The two high priests of the Order of 
the Bow, one of whom is Mr. Gushing, then 
sprinkled their companions with water, and this 
closed the second part of the ceremonies, and the 
procession moved to the tent. The two high priests 
brought up the rear, swinging the whizzers, an- 
nouncing to the gods of the ocean that the prayers 
are complete. A prayer chant was sung and the 
sacred meal sprinkled toward the west, whither 
their road lies to home. Then the priest returned 
to the beach, bearing vessels for the sacred water. 
Two of the priests, who were barefooted, waded 
into the water and filled the vessels, and after this 



394 THE SAFE SIDE. 

came the most imposing ceremony of the after- 
noon, the initiation of Gushing into the Order 
of the Kau Kan. This is the highest religious 
order among the Zunis, and by his entrance Gushing 
will become possessed of the mythology and early 
history of all the tribe, which is in possession of 
but four priests. The high priest and Gushing 
clasped their arms about each other so as to bring 
their left sides or their hearts together, and the 
priest called upon the gods to v/itness that the 
man is his son. The four other priests followed 
this example, and Gushing was baptized and his 
hands washed with the salt water, and the initia- 
tion was as complete as possible. It will be re- 
peated c^ arriving home, and Mr. Gushing will 
then have his heart's desire, a knowledge, which 
he is pursuing in the interest of ethnology, of the 
history of the oldest tribe of men in America. 

The following two accounts further illustrate 
the great depth of superstition that still remains 
in the church. The Italian Penitents seem to 
have changed places with the Indians. This oc- 
curred near where Ghristianity w^as first mentioned 
in history, and upon the scene of part of Paul's 
labors, and near the Ghristian capital throughout 
the Ghristian era. There is no place in the world 
where churches and priests are so numerous, nor 
where so much money has been expended in its 
cause, and, consequently, where such a high state 
of civilization ought to exist, provided belief has 
the effect to civilize the believers. 

The English Gatholics, on the other hand, were 
engaged in precisely the same occupation that the 
Zuni Indians were, such difference as there was 
being in favor of the latter. A pilgrimage to the 



CONVERSION. 395 

seashore and worship of the ocean are a far more 
intelligent religion than pilgrimage to and wor- 
ship at Lourdes. 

ITALIAN PENITENTES. 

[Naples Correspondence London Neivs."] 

We are in the Province of Grosetto, which prov- 
ince is notable for being the worst malaria region 
in Italy. It is near midnight on Good Friday. A 
procession composed of about thirty individuals 
passes through the streets, most of them being 
young men from 15 to 25, the others boys from 10 
to 15 years of age. Their bodies from the waist 
upwards are bare except for a kind of white cape, 
which is open behind instead of in front and thus 
leaves the back and shoulders bare. Their faces 
are veiled by a white cloth wath two holes for the 
eyes. They each carry two instruments of torture, 
one, called the sferri, being a whip formed of many 
flexible thin strips of iron, the other called the 
spilli, a whip made of many strings of cord with 
knots at the end, into which are fastened many 
large and crooked pins. On each side of the 
procession walk men called codini, some of whom 
carry torches which throw^ a lugubrious light on 
the strange procession and some carrying sticks 
with which they direct and guide the flagellants. 
These young men and boys walk a distance of at 
least a mile and a half, now whipping themselves 
with the sferri, now with the spilli, the first pro- 
ducing red and livid marks on the shoulders and 
the last causing the blood to flov/ from a hundred 
little pricks and scratches. The signal for chang- 
ing the mode of torture is given by the codini, who 
strike their sticks on the ground, at which sound 
the flagellants change the action of their sferri for 
that of the spilli, or vice versa, with military pre- 
cioion. After two or three hours of slow walking 
the procession enters the church and the flagella- 
tion is more furiously continued. After this the 



39^ THE SAFE SIDE. 

sore and wounded backs of the penitents are 
washed with water mixed with vinegar and salt. 



A pilgrimage to Lourdes, which is to leave 
London on May 21, is being organized among the 
Roman Catholics throughout the kingdom. The 
leaders of this movement are nearly all laymen. 

The Duke of , the Earl of , Lord and 

many others, more or less well known, are organ- 
izing the expedition, and statements of what the 
journey will cost by the different routes are being 
put forth in the Catholic papers. It is supposed 
that no fewer than 250 persons will take part in the 
pilgrimage, and that, with the exception of a few 
servants who will accompany them, the pilgrims 
will all belong to the upper and upper-middle 
classes of Catholic society. The avowed object 
of the undertaking is said to be that England may 
be freed from the troubles which threaten her with 
regard to Ireland. ^ 

At the risk of a slight digression I would like 
to call attention to the ideas of the Catholic priest- 
hood as to what constitutes education, particularly 
as they make themselves conspicuously solicitous 
on that subject and establish their schools nearly 
as freely as their churches. If religion has any 
part in it, it at least cannot affect the elementary 
studies, for under any circumstances they must 
be taught in some school and no part of our educa- 
tion requires as much time in proportion as they 
do. The time now devoted to them in our public 
schools does not average five hours per day during 
Five days of the week and nine months of the year. 
This certainly leaves abundant time for religious 
instruction and bears the smallest proportion 



CONVERSION. 397 

possible to the whole time to do justice to those 
studies. When, therefore, the Catholic church 
refuses to accept the free gift of those schools, it 
in substance says that too much time is given to 
those studies, for while they are in progress the 
minds of the scholars cannot be occupied with the 
subject of religion, no matter in what school they 
may be taught. 

It was recently announced that the plenary 
council at Baltimore contemplated withdrawing 
all Catholic children from public schools for the 
purpose of sending them to schools of their own. 
The reason given for this was insulting to the man- 
agement of those public schools and to the people 
of the country that instituted them. Schools to 
which the most intelligent and respectable people 
send their children were not moral enough for 
children of that class which supplies the largest 
percentage of the most ignorant and criminal part 
of our population. This insult was to be accom- 
panied with a demand which, if complied with, 
would admit of our Government being divided 
into a thousand pett}^ independent parts. It was 
to the effect that part of the cost of supporting 
the public schools should be paid to the Catholic 
church according to the proportion which their 
children bore to the whole. 

This contemplated demand amounts in sub- 
stance to this: That, whereas the people of the 
United States have enacted certain laws of which 
we do not approve, we now demand that our pro- 



39^ THE SAFE SIDE. 

portion of the expenses necessary to carry out 
those laws be transferred to us to be used at our 
secret pleasure, without accounting to the people 
who, as citizens, paid those taxes and whose offi- 
cers collected them. It is in effect equivalent to 
a demand to be exempt from taxation for the sup- 
port of such laws as they did not approve. 

That church has succeeded in making a large 
part of the people of Chile all that it wished. It 
has greater power there than the Government. 
So powerfully does the church act upon the super- 
stition of the people, whose sole religious ideas 
were obtained through it, that under the orders 
of a priest large numbers will inflict degrading 
punishment and even torture upon themselves and 
will continue to do so until the priest condescends 
to release them. The church requires that all 
marriage ceremonies shall be performed by its 
priests, for which service a fee of $25 is exacted. 
The consequence is that over 60 per cent, of the 
births are illegitimate through the inability of the 
poor to sustain that severe tax. The Government 
has of late endeavored to correct this evil by legal- 
izing marriages performed by its own magistrates. 
The archbishop has had the effrontery to combat 
the Government for this proper and necessary ex- 
ercise of its legitimate authority by excommuni- 
cating all Government officers making such laws 
and all who execute them or are married under 
them. The fact th'at the archbishop may issue 
such proclamations and not be imprisoned is alone 



CONVERSION. 399 

evidence of the great power which that church 
has in that country. Until recently that Govern- 
ment would not have presumed to enter upon a 
contest with the superior powers of the church, 
and even now it is a question if a government 
founded purely upon superstition will not prove 
stronger than a Government founded upon patriot- 
ism and love of liberty. 

That contest proves that the morality of the 
people is a matter of indifference to the Catholic 
hierarchy as compared to power and revenue. It 
also exhibits the secular Government solicitous 
for the morals of the people, while the church, 
which assumes that to be its own special duty, is 
shown to be willing to foster immorality in order 
to secure a high marriage fee. 

The great power of that church in Chile is de- 
rived wholly through the ideas which the people 
have as to the divine authority of the priesthood ; 
it is through the impressions they make upon the 
minds of the youth of Chile in its parochial schools. 
In those schools the scholars will hear a little of 
God, still less of Christ, but very much of purga- 
tory and of the holy fathers^ and of their divinely 
appointed power to stay or increase punishment 
after death. The most conspicuous outcome of 
those schools is a population that abjectly, ser- 
vilely obeys the priesthood and panders to their 
love of power and comfort.' 



* At the behest of the Roman Catholic Church about one 
million of the most industrious inhabitants of Spain were 



400 THE SAFE SIDE. 

It must be remembered, also, that the Catholic 

church in Chile and in the United States is under 
the control of the same autocratic head. Those 
men in the plenary council in Baltimore receive 
their appointments from the same central power 
that appoints bishops and archbishops for Chile, 
and the same authority dictates the policy for each 
country. When it is considered that the aggran- 
dizement of its own power and wealth is the real 
object and end of the higher officials of that 
church, it will be seen that its different policy 
here is varied to fit the different nature of the 
people. It begs more and domineers less in this 
country, a condition that will be reversed in the ex- 
act proportion that it obtains control of education. 
Eugene Sue, in The Wandering Jew, stated 
in substance that the Catholic authorities made it 
a point to pay especial attention to rich, devout 
Catholics; that they would acquaint themselves 
with the characteristics of such devotees and dele- 
gate a bishop or high officer particularly adapted 



hunted out like wild beasts because the sincerity of their 
religious opinions was doubted. * * * For the first time 
there was not a heretic to be seen between the Pyrenees 
and the Straits of Gibraltar. ^ * ^ Not only were the in- 
terests of the clergy deemed superior to the interests of 
laymen, but the interests of laymen were scarcely thought 
Qf * * * 'pj^e highest nobles deemed it an honor to dress 
the priest when dressing for mass. * * * The greatest 
men, with hardly an exception, became ecclesiastics and 
all temporal considerations of earthly policy were dis- 
persed and set at naught. '^ "^ ^ All over Spain the same 
destitution prevailed. That once rich and prosperous 
country was covered with a rabble of monks and clergy 
whose insatiate rapacit}^ absorbed the little wealth yet to 
be found. — Buckle's History of Civilization in England. 



CONVERSION. 401 

to play upon their natural religious feelings and 
induce them to donate or bequeath their wealth 
to the church. Rich women are most liable to 
yield to this kind of influence. A short time ago 
the papers were giving accounts at quite the same 
time of three very rich unmarried ladies who were 
being thus beset, two of whom actually did add 
large sums to the vast hoard of the enormously 
rich Catholic hierarchy. It was painful in one in- 
stance to contemplate the great sacrifice made to 
the greed of that exclusively money-making and 
power-seeking association. The utter uselessness 
of this sacrifice is exemplified in the statement 
lately made that in the Vatican there is more gold 
in the gold ornaments scattered throughout that 
vast and useless building than there is of gold 
coin in all Europe. 

Judging from its completed work, therefore, as 
exhibited in the instances just referred to in Italy 
and Chile, and from what we see of its work here, 
an educated man, in the eyes of the officers of that 
church, is one who believes that a Catholic priest 
possesses supernatural influence over his welfare 
in the future existence, who is, consequently, ser- 
vilely deferential to him, and who will abjectly 
obey his orders and submit to his extortions, 
through fears of a purgatory from which he may 
be saved only through the ceremonies dictated 
by the church and which may be performed by 
none but its authorized agents. 

It is true that many priests and bishops in that 
26 



402 THE SAFE SIDE. 

church are most excellent men and exert them- 
selves for the general good, and many ignorant 
Catholics may be pointed out who would far better 
be under the control of a good priest than if left 
to their own guidance. But this slight curtain of 
good is the ambush behind which the vast evil of 
that church is hid. It is the slight mixture of 
truth that, by supporting the falsehood, makes its 
evil far greater. The ideas of the heads of that 
church as to what constitutes education create far 
more of those ignorant Catholics than they do of 
good priests; nor is this good a result of their doc- 
trines or teachings. The percentage of those su- 
perior men within the church is no greater (if as 
great) than is found in any association outside of 
it. The church does not form those virtues, but, 
on the contrary, it is a parasite upon them. 

On the other hand, those Protestants who at 
times have demanded that the Bible be read in 
school are equally at fault. The truth is, how- 
ever, that Catholicism differs from Protestantism 
only as strong brandy differs from weak. Every 
fault of the former is found in the latter in a mod- 
ified degree. Long experience has brought the 
church — Catholics and Protestants alike — to the 
exact point where their social, pecuniary, and po- 
litical interests lie, and gradually all their efforts 
have been directed to that point alone; and in 
their eager pursuit of an end which they have 
mistaken for religion they have arrayed themselves 
in opposition to advanced education and foster 
superstition, ignorance, and wretchedness. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

WORLDLINESS. 



If we call good every kind of conduct which aids the 
lives of others, and do this under the belief that life brings 
more happiness than misery, then it becomes undeniable 
that, taking into account immediate and remote effects on 
all persons, the good is universally the pleasurable. (The 
Data of Ethics, by Herbert Spencer.) 

ONE of the effects of the law of gravitation is 
that water will run down hill. This is often a 
serious trouble. We would prefer that it should 
not stop and make a swamp here and there while 
on its way to the sea and that it should delay its 
floods at times and avoid destruction of property. 
Nevertheless, the certainty that that effect of that 
law will never vary is worth more to us than any 
suspension of it could possibly be, while the evils 
which it incidentally causes may be cured by the 
same process that made them. Those evils are to 
be overcome by the removal of obstructions, and 
not by beseeching the Almighty to suspend His 
laws. 

It is the same with the mental law of selfish- 
ness. It causes great moral cesspools of vice and 
at times gathers force and sweeps all other con- 
siderations before it into widespread ruin. Self- 



404 THE SAFE SIDE. 

ishness is at the bottom of all human degradation; 
but for it there would be no temptation and there- 
fore nothing to resist. Our appetites and avarice 
are but secondary to selfishness. 

But every good act of man is also based upon 
vSelfishness. We would not attempt the exercise 
of any of our mental tendencies but for it. We 
are misled by other faculties into a supposition 
that the happiness of others is at times an incen- 
tive to some of our acts. But such is not the case. 
Their happiness is secondary to our own, for we 
have been made by those faculties to take pleas- 
ure in their happiness. This most lovable charac- 
teristic of human nature is the source of some of 
the greatest pleasures of life. Under some cir- 
cumstances and mental deficiencies persons bring 
pecuniary ruin upon themselves in their undue 
indulgence of the happiness of giving joy to others. 

One of the commonest sorrows of parents is be- 
cause of the objectionable places of resort sought 
by their sons. Those disreputable places and the 
intemperance to which they lead ruin the happi- 
ness of thousands, both of the individuals them- 
selves and of all connected with them. The mis- 
ery bears a great disproportion to the acts that 
caused it, for those acts were but the slow accu- 
mulation of indulgences that at last swept away 
the victims and all that had built too much upon 
them. But those young men were exercising fac- 
ulties that God intended they should exercise. 
They were simply seeking their pleasure in men- 



WORLDLINESS. 40^ 

tal diversion, and they found it in that greatest of 
all fountains of human happiness, the social pleas- 
ures. The fault did not lie in their selfishly seek- 
ing those pleasures. The evil was because of the 
obstructions that stopped the natural flow of those 
tendencies and left them to stagnate and breed 
moral miasma and ruin in obscure and hidden 
places. 

Mental diversion is not only a pleasure, but it 
is a necessity. When that great day does come, 
when, through more perfect laws and a more per- 
fect knowledge of human rights, the joys of this 
life shall be more widely distributed, it will be 
•found that diversion, even at public expense, will 
be an important item in political economy and an 
expense that will be cheerfully borne because of 
the great good that will attend it. The mind is 
renewed by mental diversion, and that we should 
seek it is as natural as that water should run down 
hill. It is our duty to know the natural mental 
wants and bring to bear our highest experience in 
keeping their indulgence pure, not in vain resist- 
ance, but by guiding them through channels that 
make of them a living stream of usefulness and 
pleasure. 

The places that entice young men to their ruin 
yield but little pleasure and are managed by per- 
sons of a low degree of intellect. But those re- 
sorts supply a want that society too cumbersomely 
and too infrequently touches upon, and they there- 
fore neglect the one and seek the other. It would 



406 THE SAFE SIDE. 

be an easy task to provide a social system that 
would present daily attractions compared to which 
those low diversions would sink into indifference 
and deserved contempt. But in doing so a prin- 
ciple of action is demanded diametrically opposite 
to that taught by Christianity. That religion is 
the remote cause of much of that degradation 
which it claims to be especially adapted to pre- 
vent. In its condemnation of the pleasures of 
life, under the name of worldliness, it has dammed 
up the natural flow of a great human want, the 
supplying of which rendered far greater service 
than its merely temporary gratification. 

One of the first steps in social and political re- 
form is to give society a certain amount of organi- 
zation. But the church is a bar to this. It has 
monopolized that position by establishing itself as 
the only standard of excellence, and it dictates to 
society that which society alone should act upon 
through an organization of its own. The variety 
of denominations, also, has cut the social system 
into too many circles, and in this manner the enor- 
mous power that organized society could wield for 
public good is dissipated and lost. Only the church 
presumes to discipline, and that discipline is de- 
voted to the false sins and false virtues of its own 
system. It has made itself the. doorkeeper to so- 
ciety and exacts for adinission that which simply 
involves priestly service and which secures only its 
own support. 

The club system seems to be the germ of that 



WORLDLtNESS. 4<^7 

which may eventually develop into an organized 
social system that would accomplish this object. 
All such associations, whether social or commer- 
cial, are invariably rigid in their demands upon 
the honor of each member, and cultivation of the 
faculty of honor is the one greatest public need at 
the present time. Let us suppose, for instance, 
that the club system be extended so as to em- 
brace whole families, old and young, male and fe- 
male, and that, instead of a club house of a few 
hundred thousand dollars' value, a vast structure, 
costing a few million dollars, be built for a daily 
rendezvous for all members at stated hours, ac- 
cording to age, sex, and needs. It may readily 
be seen what a succession of social enjoyments of 
every nature would accompany such an organiza- 
tion. Every kind of taste could be gratified and 
at the same time every enjoyment would be of 
a highly moral character. Illustrated lectures, 
music, plays, balls, paintings, libraries, special 
parties, and social life generally, both entertain- 
ing and instructive, would be established that 
would surpass anything now known. The intel- 
lectual friction would be valuable and in turn 
would stimulate study. 

Under an organized social system there would 
be a smaller number of circles than now, though 
there would still be numerous organizations, or 
clubs, under different degrees of expense, accord- 
ing to the pecuniary means of the members, even 
to those composed of laborers. It is more impor- 



408 THE SAFE SIDE. 

tant that the poor have those organizations than 
the rich. Much of that which is now attributed 
to aristocratic exclusiveness is based simply on 
the inability of the excluded persons to meet the 
intellectual or pecuniary requirements of those 
with whom they cannot associate. Under these 
organizations there would be social amenities be- 
tween different clubs, even between the richest 
and poorest to some extent, particularly in invi- 
tations to lectures. The former would in various 
ways be of much use to the latter, and a better 
feeling between the wealthy and the working 
classes would be cultivated. 

Men are students always ; in fact, properly di- 
rected mental culture is one of the greatest of en- 
joyments, provided it is pursued in a proper man- 
ner. The varying degrees of power by which a 
fact may be impressed upon the mind ought to be 
acted upon in all educational matters. For in- 
stance : If a school boy be informed that the sun 
is 880, oDo miles in diameter and that the earth is 
8, 000 miles in diameter, an important fact is con- 
veyed to his mind with no more power than would 
have been the case if he had simply been told that 
the sun was vastly larger than the earth. If he 
were naturally skillful in mathematics he might 
remember the figures, but even that would not 
insure comprehension. But if the difference in 
size could be illustrated by a globe 9^ feet in 
diameter and a marble i inch in diameter, his ob- 
servation, imagination, and mathematics would all 



WORLDLINESS. 409 

take part in creating a lasting impression upon his 
mind of the fact. 

Acting upon this principle, thousands of dollars 
might be advantageously expended in machinery 
and every variety of apparatus for the purpose of 
illustrating various scientific lectures. By doing 
so they would be made intensely interesting and 
the facts set forth would never be forgotten. 

There are many advantages attending such an 
organization as here proposed that will readily 
come to the mind of the reader. These sugges- 
tions are intended mostly to give an idea of the 
extent to which the social system ought to be car- 
ried, rather than any recommendation as to details. 
That is a study which would demand and in time 
draw out superior abilities in developing and in 
originating new advantages and enjoyments. 

Expulsion from such a body would be as serious 
as failure in business. Memberships would be so 
desirable that its regulations would be carefully 
obeyed through fear of the disgrace of expulsion 
or even suspension. Great power could thus be 
brought to bear to cultivate the all-important fac- 
ulty of honor. As it now is, society greatly needs 
a defined authority to pass upon the question of 
admission or expulsion. Men are now admitted 
who are known to have been guilty of that which 
would cause their prompt rejection on the part of 
any committee who might be intrusted with that 
power. On the other hand there are instances 
where, through competent investigation, a person's 



4iO THE SAFE SIDE. 

character might be saved that now, under an un- 
fortunate combination of circumstances, is unjustly 
lost. This in particular is often the case with 
women. 

Ordinarily the average abilities of public officers 
are above the average ability of the whole people 
and the honest efforts of the former will secure the 
confidence and support of the latter. But if those 
in authority should be corrupt and pass upon the 
people's rights for personal considerations, the 
effect would be the same as though the intelligence 
of the governing authorities were of a low order. 
Their unwise course would be patent to the whole 
people and general confidence would be corre- 
spondingly lost, even though the dishonesty of the 
officials might not have been detected. This lack 
of confidence is the cause of much internal trouble 
and is a danger to any government. To secure 
officers whose high sense of honor places them 
above corruption has always been regarded as of 
the greatest importance in all governments, mu- 
nicipal or general. 

If the faculty of honor with the people at large 
be low, it will necessarily average low in its offi- 
cers and public rights will be correspondingly 
■overridden. All the mental faculties must de- 
velop in proportion to the enlarged ideas and ne- 
cessities of more enlightened times. Any tardi- 
ness in that respect will sooner or later become a 
prominent evil and will arrest further progress 
until it is corrected. Is not a high sense of honor 



WORLDLINESS. 4t1 

in public officers the greatest want in most gov- 
ernments at the present day? Everywhere there 
are officials who are selling the rights and prop- 
erty of the people and there is a general undercur- 
rent of fear in consequence. Contrast the honor 
of the Romans in the time of the Republic with 
the average degree of honor now. The natural 
cultivation of that faculty has been interrupted by 
the church. In place of the ostracism and shame 
that the bribed official would meet from society, 
he is now met by the church with a little senti- 
ment as to forgiveness, repentance, and faith, after 
which he is absolved from the effect of his crime. 

The great power for the discipline of men and 
women that organized society could wield, and the 
largest part of the enjoyments it could give, and 
the better average of knowledge that it would be 
instrumental in teaching are now all lost through 
the false sins and false virtues of the Christian 
system. It is an easy thing for bar rooms, gam- 
bling shops, and other places of low entertainment, 
to give attractions that will draw many from a so- 
ciety whose teachings of what is good and bad are 
like those taught by Christianity. 

Many within the church of late have awakened 
to some of the evils of the stale and insipid life 
that attends a strict following of its teachings, and 
they begin to retract somewhat by drawing fine 
lines as to what is and what is not worldliness. 
But these discussions only bring into stronger 
light the depth of superstition that still clings to 



412 tHE SAli-E SIDE. 

Christianity. The trifling entertainments which 
it countenances bear a ridiculously small propor- 
tion to the wants which the improved conveniences 
of life have begotten. The poor Hindoo who 
holds up his arm until it withers differs from an 
orthodox Christian only in his more intense devo- 
tion to an opinion of God that is common to them 
both. The latter, more intelligently, omits phys- 
ical torture, but equally uselessly condemns him- 
self to self-denials of harmless pleasures and to 
consequent mental depression because of the same 
ideas that induce the Hindoo to suffer his physical 
pains. Universal brotherhood and peace and good 
will among men will be soonest reached through 
an intelligent cultivation of the joys of life. This 
and the future life are two stages of the same ex- 
istence and both are equally holy ; if it be wrong 
to seek our pleasure here, it will be equally so to 
seek it hereafter. 

We are told that pleasure will divert our minds 
from religious matters and attach us too much to 
this world. There might be something in this if 
the time for dying were a matter of our own choos- 
ing, for in such case enjoyments might lead to a 
refusal to die at all. God has commanded us to 
love this life by giving us a mental faculty that 
makes us cling to it through a lifetime, often, of 
pain and adversity. If, also, it be wrong to di- 
vert the mind for a time from religious matters, 
then it is wrong to exercise the mind upon any 
other mental faculty whatever. 



WORLDLINESS. 413 

In summer evenings, wherever we may be, 
there may be seen a large part of the population 
lounging about in a listless idleness that is often 
burdensome. This is not the result of warm 
weather, but simply a disclosure it incidentally 
makes of a dullness in those evening hours which 
is perpetual and universal. This is rest for the 
body, but not necessarily rest for the mind, and 
the latter is the more important of the two. Idle- 
ness does not always give mental rest, because of 
our inability to keep the mind away from the sub- 
ject that has been occupying it. Even sleep in 
some instances does not fully accomplish this. 
Mental diversion alone can do this, and it needs 
gratifying daily at the close of working hours. 

With increasing powers to supply our wants, 
there should have grown up a wider range of 
enjoyments. The genius that has developed all 
other branches should have equally developed this, 
but the benefits of that growth have been lost to 
us. We are like a plant part of which has never 
had the light of the sun. 

Those evening hours should be by far the hap- 
piest part of the day. They should be so enjoy- 
able as to be looked forward to in pleasurable anti- 
cipation throughout the working or business hours. 
They should be so desirable as to stimulate and 
enliven our daily duties. It is not a hardship to 
be hungry, nor even objectionable, provided we 
can have good food at the proper time. It is so 
with labor of every nature, whether of the body 



414 THE SAFE SIDE. 

or the mind. If each day could be closed with a 
few hours of unalloyed enjoyment, those labors 
would cease to be objectionable. It is not that 
those labors alone wear upon the mind, but it is 
because there is mingled with them only hopeless 
ennici. 

If our nights could be filled with music, 

The cares that infest the day 
Would fold their tents, like the Arabs, 

And as silently steal away. 

So perfectly has nature's system been adjusted 
to our wants that every duty we owe to others, in- 
dividually or collectively, yields equally as much 
advantage to the payer as to the payee. When all 
are justly treated it will be found that no man 
need be under obligations to another, for each re- 
ceives as much as he gives. There will be per- 
fect reciprocity and perfect independence. Some 
of our educated wants are found in advanced ideas 
of public improvement, and the amount of those 
works in progress should be so gauged that at all 
times workmen could rely on them for work. 
Though those men may be glad to get the work, 
they have no occasion to be under obligation to 
the public, for, in effect, it costs nothing. If the 
people of a township, for instance, should build a 
bridge and all the material used were raised, 
sawed, and quarried in that township and all the 
workmen lived there, then that bridge costs the 
people of that township nothing, the money ex- 
pended upon it having simply been transferred 



WORLDLINESS. 415 

from one body of owners to another. This trans- 
fer would reach much further than simple pay- 
ment to the workmen, for their many wants would 
be the more widely supplied with the increased 
power to supply them. There would be a certain 
percentage of increase of trade, therefore, caused 
by this mere transfer or circulation of money. 
Public works of every nature, state and national, 
not only cost nothing, but it is such works, pub- 
lic and private, that give life and energy to trade. 
Money is to the public what blood is to the body; 
to no other thing does it sustain such a perfect re- 
lation. The mere presence of capital is not enough, 
it is its healthy circulation that is wanted and 
through that circulation the whole country is pros- 
perous. Trade and commerce live in the con- 
struction and not in the completed work. It h 
the enforced expenses of a new town or country 
that give it prosperity, and it is the want of such 
public exercise of energy that causes old countries 
to stagnate and decay. 

But, however great the advantage may be in 
keeping public improvements in progress, there is 
a limit to the capital that should be devoted to 
that purpose. There is enough, however, to se- 
cure the construction of all known improvements 
in a reasonable time and to at all times supply 
work to the unemployed, provided that capital 
circulates in a natural manner. Under erroneous 
ideas, that percentage which trade yields for the 
construction and improvement of streets, walks, 



4l6 THE SAFE SIDE. 

sewers, parks, roads, bridges, village waterworks, 
etc., may be diverted to useless ends, and those 
health-giving and otherwise greatly desired works 
will be left undone. 

The salaries paid to over 80,000 Protestant cler- 
gymen in the United States and to other unknown 
thousands in that close, money-getting institution, 
the Catholic church, will account for the poverty- 
stricken condition of those improvements as com- 
pared to the needs of the public and the needs of 
those who would do the work. However numer- 
ous and costly the churches may be, they convey 
but a small idea of the vast cost of the thousands 
supported within the system. We need go back 
but a few years into the past to cover a time within 
which $1,000,000,000 has been so expended. The 
fact that the money may be said to have been vol- 
untarily contributed makes no difference; the 
people were correspondingly weakened. The 
mone}^ was intended for the public good, but 
through the worldliness of the clergy it was di- 
verted to their own personal uses. Nor was the 
church's success in obtaining that money wholly 
owing to the religious feelings. The most of it 
was raised through the power and ingenuity which 
it was able to bring to bear through its organiza- 
tion and the vast number of those interested in 
securing it. 

With the progress that has been made in the 
science of government there should have grown 
up a knowledge of the great wealth of the united 



WORLDLINESS. 417 

public. This knowledge the church has inter- 
cepted; it has absorbed such a vast amount of 
public energy that to this day the people do not 
know their enormous powers in supplying public 
wants. Each individual has a personal interest in 
all public works and the convenience and advan- 
tages which he derives from them are measured 
by their extent and perfection. A large part of 
our daily wants are supplied through public ex- 
penses and some of these expenses are of more 
importance to us than those exclusively private. 
Particularly is this the case in sanitary and educa- 
tional matters and roads. However poor we may 
be individually, unitedly we are rich to a great, 
but as yet undiscovered, degree. 

It cannot be shown that directly and indirectly 
Christianity does not cost the people of this coun- 
try over five hundred million dollars annually. Think 
of the vast works for public health, convenience, 
education, and universal moderate prosperity, this 
sum would accomplish if employed, as it now 
purports to be, for public use. 

The prevailing unrest of the mass of the people 
and consequent public dangers are because of the 
great wealth of the few and the not unnatural in- 
ference that the people have in some way been 
defrauded of their rights. Yet how small a matter 
the wealth of the few is as compared to this vast 
annual expense ! It is probable that all the wealth 
of those whose wealth is of national repute would 
not pay one year's expenses of Christianity and 
27 



41 8 THE SAFE SIDE. 

that the wealth of all the millionaires in the United 
States would not pay these expenses ten years. 

And for all this the clergy expend their brain 
work upon questions that are shameful in their 
insignificance. Outside of wrangles over figments 
of their own credulity, over revelations that do not 
reveal, their one greatest requirement is the ob- 
servance of the modern Sunday, which they de- 
fine to be attendance at church. This is a false 
virtue of their own construction, but it is conspic- 
uously held up as of the greatest importance. A 
little reflection will show that their own support 
and social glories are derived exclusively through 
compliance with this requirement. Those acts 
which the public is interested in suppressing are 
those which should not be committed on any day, 
but in the suppression of these acts the church is 
a clog. 

Thus it is that we are left with but a small per- 
centage of the improvements we ought to have 
and the poor are made poorer through the absence 
of the work those improvements would have given. 
The greatest burden falls upon the latter. No 
matter who contributes the money, only those 
pay who suffer. The vast sums which the church 
intercepts make it the fountain head of extreme 
poverty. 

The most important preventive of crime lies 
in certain duties before the criminals are born. 
Their very existence may be largely the fault of 
our ignorance of certain laws of the mind. The 



WORLD LIN ESS. 419 

mental deformities of criminals may be traceable 
to the mental discipline and experience of par- 
ents. Those faculties that make us patriotic and 
cause us to respect our fellow men and the laws 
may be blunted and finally obliterated under long- 
continued poverty and misery. The wretchedness 
of mothers, smarting under a belief of outrage on 
the part of the laws, will often result in the birth 
of children who will not respect those laws. We 
are all linked together. The poverty of a neigh- 
borhood, as well as its sickness, reflects back upon 
the public at large. It is just as important to se- 
cure to the poor their reasonable support by giv- 
ing them sufficient work as it is to secure public 
health through sanitary laws. 

A machinist may not be able to locate the cause 
of some irregularity in the running of complicated 
machinery, but by correcting such faults as he 
does discover he will find that unconsciously he 
has overcome the unknown defect. The same 
course should be pursued in affairs of government. 
There are extremes of wealth and poverty too 
great for a perfect system, and yet it is not possi- 
ble to convincingly locate the cause of that fault, 
nor is it possible for any man to devise a practica- 
ble scheme that would overcome that objection. 
The principles that underlie this Government 
have been evolved out of ages of misrule and bit- 
ter experience and if we will now devote our at- 
tention to the correction of such faults as we may 
discover we shall find that we gradually increase 



420 THE SAFE SIDE. 

the average prosperity of the people and approach 
a condition of general content. 

When more laborers are employed upon any 
work than the nature of it admits of, those work- 
men will make an appearance of labor where no 
service is rendered. They will prolong each item 
of work and busy themselves about trifles. Too 
many will take hold to lift or to pull. They will 
carry their shovels full of dirt to the place of de- 
posit rather than throw it and endeavor to make 
up in affectation of labor for the absence of any 
need for the service of part of them. 

So with the church. The number of those who 
would fill its many comfortable places have always 
been so great as to cause them to tax their ingenu- 
ity to the utmost in efforts to make work for them- 
selves. Some of its divisions into numerous de- 
nominations made upon hair-splitting points had 
for their origin only the idleness of would-be la- 
borers " in the vineyard of the Lord." Not that 
those divisions were always deliberately made for 
that purpose. They were usually the result rather 
than the cause. Those hair-splitting points not 
only gave subjects upon which to display mental 
labor, but they also conveyed an appearance of 
deep research and pious sensibility. For this rea- 
son it has not been difficult to subdivide the 
church and thus secure support for larger num- 
bers than would have been possible in a united 
condition. 

Much of the labor within the church also had 



WORLDLINESS. 42 1 

its origin in the same cause. Many churches now 
find some service for every evening in the week, 
and of late years they are encroaching upon neces- 
sary business hours with their noonday meetings 
and other unnatural and uncalled-for service. 
This excessive diligence has seldom been based 
ipon piety. It is but the natural result of the 
superabundance of workmen as compared to the 
work to be done. Their narrow ideas and useless 
labors are but so many shovelfuls of dirt with 
which they run around in affectation of labor. 

We would not regard it as a mark of a higher 
order of intelligence for a band of men to gather 
by the side of a swamp and there in supplication to 
God explain to Him that the water was bad be- 
cause of His failure to keep control of celestial 
affairs, and to tell Him of the miasma the swamp 
engendered and the consequent sickness and death 
it caused, and of the vile insects and vermin that 
were bred within it, and of the good land it cov- 
ered, and ask Him to suspend His law of attraction 
of gravitation in this case and cause the water that 
produced those evils to flow over the adjoining 
hills and leave the swamp pure and dry. We now 
know that its removal is simply a question of work 
and that in removing it we are cultivating within 
ourselves those powers which He intended we 
should cultivate. We know we can get rid of 
swamps by the same law that made them. If we 
will remove the obstructions, the water that ran 
into them will run away from them. 



422 THE SAFE SIDE. 

But it is only by supplicating the Almighty to 
suspend a corresponding law of the mind that the 
church proposes to get rid of human swamps of 
vice and degradation. It establishes gospel meet- 
ings in the midst of them and asks the Creator to 
overcome this evil that was caused by obstructions 
for which it alone is responsible. 

Instead of the pleasures of life being a satanic 
exhibition of worldliness, they are of the great- 
est importance, and how to increase them is a 
study of the purest religion. Underneath our 
natural mental tendencies God has established 
that universal law that makes us seek our inter- 
est and pleasure, and by that law He guides us, 
through other mental faculties, to such experience 
as He desires us to have. We can make the same 
use of the same law. We can draw people away 
from attractions that are vile by giving them bet- 
ter attractions that are good ; and where, through 
selfishness, the mind now stagnates in moral cess- 
pools of corruption, there will be a river of living 
water that will make green that which is now bar- 
ren. It will enliven our too often dull and weary 
lives and instruct where we now ignorantly suffer. 
We shall show ourselves most worthy of heaven 
in the life to come by making a heaven of the life 
we are in. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE SAFE SIDE. 



IT has been shown how naturally belief \n justifi- 
cation by faith operates as a license to wrongdo- 
ing. Forgiveness of sins is a necessary adjunct to 
such a doctrine. A person who has done wrong 
and has by any process become justified must 
necessarily have been forgiven, and hence freed 
from the future consequences of such wrong. 
Furthermore, a religious system which represents 
that all men are born in sin has great need of a 
correspondingly easy escape from consequences 
of sins so innocently acquired. Probably, about 
no feature of the Christian system has so much 
sentiment been wasted as about this. The system 
first terrorizes and then plays upon the feelings 
by the unlimited forgiveness promised to the re- 
pentant sinner. This play upon the feelings is all 
the more practicable because forgiveness among 
men is a necessity. Our many errors often lead 
us into unjust acts and retaliation, for which for- 
giveness often partly makes amends. 

But our relations to God in this respect are 
widely different. With Him all is perfect. He 
has committed no errors and has no occasion to 
violate His own laws. In natural religion wrong- 



424 THE SAFE SIDE. 

doing is well defined ; we shall know it when we 
come to it and will be held responsible in propor- 
tion. . It is not obsc'ured by a vast fictitious wicked- 
ness, beside which our actual wickedness sinks 
into insignificance. Men are not born in sin, nor 
does any one know that God permits any wrong to 
go unpunished. His laws are so far-reaching that 
all wrongdoing will probably lead to its own 
punishment. 

There is no originality in wickedness. The 
same crimes and wrongs of every shade are being 
committed over and over again. They all come 
through the same faults and under similar cir- 
cumstances, and as they have been in the past so 
will they be in the future. The percentage will 
be less as average intelligence increases, but all 
the various degrees of wickedness will be com- 
mitted as heretofore. If any sins may be forgiven 
after they have been committed, then they may 
be forgiven before. Any little ceremony of re- 
pentance, actual or affected, does not alter the 
principle. Some crimes are sure to be committed, 
and the criminal has been taught before commit- 
ting them that he might be forgiven. Such a 
system, therefore, is equivalent to granting indul- 
gences for wickedness before it is committed. It 
is equivalent to licensing the ignorant and de- 
praved to prey upon those whose conduct is irre- 
proachable. 

Salvation is part of the paraphernalia of the 
Christian system. Having established in the mind 



THE SAFE SIDE. 425 

fears of a future existence of eternal torture, it 
became necessary to balance this with the system's 
theory of salvation. For nearly seventeen hun- 
dred years the church has been playing upon hu- 
man feelings by elevating and depressing first one 
and then the other of these two great opposing 
doctrines. It is through the constant working of 
this seesaw that all its great financial, social, and 
political success has been attained. Either one 
of those doctrines would be useless to the church 
without the other. There must be the terror, the 
escape, and the church, the self -asserted channel 
through which alone safety may be secured. 

But when in time we discover the falsity of the 
basis of all our fears and then turn to examine the 
system's doctrine of salvation, we find it unworthy 
of most of the sentiments which we have' been 
wasting upon it and that it had some most seri- 
ously objectionable features. It is painful to 
think that the great crimes and cruelties of this 
world shall go un;punished simply through a little 
matter of sentiment, and it is a great public danger 
to teach such doctrines to those capable of com- 
mitting them. 

We know of no way of preventing a man from 
being run over by the cars, except by keeping 
him off the track when the cars approach ; nor is 
it possible to devise a system by which he could 
be saved that would not be detrimental to public 
welfare. He must simply leave the track at such 
times or be crushed. But when we see a vast 



426 THE SAFE SIDE. 

bank of fog rolling over the land there is no 
time nor space to escape from it. It will surely 
overwhelm us; but if we will but close our eyes 
to it we shall be unconscious of it. So with salva- 
tion. From the consequences of actual sin there is no 
salvation. From the consequences of the artificial sins of 
Christianity there is 7io need of any. 

When a conscientious person has injured an- 
other, he will experience mental pain so long as 
he can see or know of the unhappy consequences 
which he caused to the injured party. It is 
reasonable to suppose, therefore, that, in the 
future life, the same conditions on a larger scale 
will continue, and, under a higher intelligence, 
those unhappy consequences may be traced to 
their remote end. There will come a time when 
it may not be seen that the welfare of any person 
is then affected by the wrong act, and it may be 
that only then will the party who committed 
wrong be wholly released from further mental 
pain. Thus the wicked may be saved, not through 
simply superstitious sentiments formed in this 
life, but through a law of the mind that event- 
ually kindly buries all knowledge of their wicked- 
ness in oblivion. 

The various mental faculties often conflict with 
one another, as in the case of love of money and 
the affections, or caution and those faculties that 
at times call for its resistance. The best actions 
of men are to be fotmd in those conflicts. It is 
only then that the mind labors and the qualities 



THE SAFE SIDE. 427 

of the individual are made manifest. Those con- 
flicts are most marked in cases of temptation, but 
they are going on in a smaller degree daily. 
When we hold our thoughts to our business or 
studies or other duties that interfere with our 
pleasures or liberty, we are resisting other inclina- 
tions, and to that degree it is mental labor, and 
great power and persistency in that respect indi- 
cate a superior mind. 

That point where there is a struggle between 
duty and other inclinations is the point where out- 
side influence can have the most effect, and hence 
it is of the greatest importance that such influence 
be so directed as to throw its weight upon the side 
of honor and duty. This effect is not produced 
by teaching the tempted that their contemplated 
wrong is a small matter compared with their in- 
herited wickedness, and that, if they yield to the 
temptation, they may be forgiven. Such teachings 
are the worst that could be devised. It is as though 
the Government had carefully taught its soldiers 
that they were all born cowards so great that any 
yielding to their fears would add but a trifle to 
their great load of inherited cowardice and that 
any exhibition of that cowardice would be for- 
given, provided that, when the danger was over, 
they would express their regrets, coupled with 
their lasting belief in the perfection of the Govern- 
ment. 

Some men are so deficient that nothing will 
keep them from crime, while others will be honest 



428 THE SAFE SIDE. 

regardless of the worst teachings. But by far the 
largest class of crimes may be prevented under 
proper instruction. Breaches of trust and defal- 
cations, particularly, will come within the latter 
class. Responsible positions are often filled by 
men placed in them through influence before 
their trustworthiness has been established by ex- 
perience. Here and there there will be one whose 
deficiencies will be just enough to make defalca- 
tion possible with him. Such a man will feel 
tempted by the opportunity and often for many 
months will dwell upon it. His contemplated 
crime is belittled by the magnitude of his inherited 
sins and partly justified in his mind by the in- 
justice of holding him responsible for what he 
could not help, while the easy forgiveness he can 
obtain takes away nearly all fear of punishment. 
His only fear would be that he might die suddenly 
and thus not have an opportunity to repent and be 
forgiven. 

Common sense demands restitution, but many 
crimes do not admit of it, particularly in that 
large class of crimes and violation of honor grow- 
ing out of the sexual relations. Nor does restitu- 
tion always make amends to the injured person in 
pecuniary affairs. The history of the agony of 
mind of many who have yielded to temptation 
would deter thousands who now fall half leaning 
upon false teachings of forgiveness. 

Forgiveness of sins is a belief wholly within the 
Christian system. No one knows it to be true, 



THE SAFE SIDE. 429 

and as it is contrary to reason and experience it 
is probably false. An honest man has no use for 
that doctrine. A penalty is attached to all wrong 
acts, and the one and only way to avoid that 
penalty is not to commit such acts. Belief in 
Jesus Christ or in the Bible, or attendance at 
church, or compliance with any of the explana- 
tory doctrines of Christianity will in no way stay 
such penalty. No matter of faith nor any of the 
false virtues of Christianity will in the least help 
those who are guilty. There is no object in hav- 
ing the religious feelings but to prevent such wrong 
acts and there is no religion in just the extent to 
which they are committed. 

Public welfare has been greatly injured by the 
weak verdicts of juries, caused by the uncalled- 
for fears of a large percentage of jurymen. These 
men have been loaded down with inherited ideas 
of their wickedness and that they must " forgive 
to be forgiven," and in unmerciful ideas of what 
constitutes mercy they have retarded the stamping- 
out of crime and consequently increased the per- 
centage of criminals over what it otherwise would 
have been. It is probable that this unnatural in- 
fluence in the verdicts of our many hundreds of 
thousands of juries within the last hundred years 
has had a more injurious effect upon public morals 
than such corruption as there may have been in all 
our various legislative bodies within that time. 

Christianity presents, in substance, these alter- 
natives: believe in Jesus Christ and be saved or 



430 THE SAFE SIDE. 

refuse to believe in him and suffer damnation. 
These are given as the two alternatives of the 
question, and consequently when in doubt it is 
assumed to be the safe side to believe. These two 
seeming alternatives are but the Christian presen- 
tation of the question ; it is one side only. It is 
their demand to believe in Christ accompanied 
with what they hold up as an inducement and as 
a threat. The other alternative can only be pre- 
sented by those who have taken the other side of 
the question. But in a Christian country only the 
Christian presentation of this question is heard 
and therefore we grow up under the supposition 
that that presentation includes the two and only 
alternatives. Hence it is that believing is sup- 
posed to be the safe side and that vast numbers 
are held by that error to a partial support of that 
religion, a religion the first step in which consists 
in defaming God and which grants an unauthor- 
ized license to commit wrong by that which, when 
traced to its remote end, consists only in supplying 
with enviable social and pecuniary positions the un- 
numbered thousands who preach those doctrines. 

Those men teach, for instance, that a man fail- 
ing to control his temper by giving way to pro- 
fanity is utterly lost in wickedness, even though 
he may be otherwise a good man. It is important, 
then, to understand just what it is in swearing that 
is irreverent to God. ' Profanity is language only 



^ Swearing is most common with English-speaking peo- 
ple and this peculiarity probably had its origin in the 



THE SAFE SIDE. 43 I 

and its wickedness must necessarily consist in the 
ideas which the language conveys. It is at least 
a display of bad temper and as such will always 
be offensive. As a rule we do not work our men- 
tal energies up to their full capacity. We should 
not. We are like any other machine in that re- 
spect, and have a margin of strength that on 
emergencies may be called into action. It is by 
anger that surplus energies are sometimes awak- 
ened. When, therefore, a person becomes angry, 
he virtually admits that he has reached his or- 
dinary limits of mental power and now summons 
his reserved forces to meet the difficulty before 
him. Passion too easily raised is thus evidence 
of weakness. There are times when passion is 
properly called upon, and in some instances most 
heroic acts have been displayed under it. At such 
times many a hero has died with his last word an 
oath. But such oaths call for no " recording angel 
to blot them out with a tear;" they show not the 
remotest disrespect to God nor do they evince an 
evil disposition. 

But Christians assert that God lost control of 
the world. It is not possible for mere words to 
be more blasphemous than these. It is not lan- 
guage used in the heat of passion, but it is calmly 

Cromwell rebellion. Time has abbreviated many puri- 
tanical expressions and by robbing them of their sancti- 
monious character has transformed them into a variety of 
oaths found only in the English language. For numerous 
illustrations of terms then in common use. the reader is 
referred to Peveril of the Peak, by Sir Walter Scott. 



432 THE SAFE SIDE. 

and deliberately taught as a creed of the church. 
It is used, too, by those who now have some idea 
of the magnitude of creation and know how ex- 
ceedingly narrow it was supposed to be by those 
who originated this grossest possible insult hu- 
manity could address to the Creator. This insult 
is embodied in the very title of Christianity, for 
it is its explanation as to how it is that Christ is a 
savior. ^ 

The human mind is incapable of giving as much 
honor and glory to each of two men filling the 
duties of one office as it would give to a man who 
performed those duties alone. If, for instance, 
the duties of the President of the United States 
were performed by two men, that office would not 
be exalted thereby; its glories would simply be 
divided between the two. Each would have not 
over half the honors now given to one. 



^ The Roman Catholic authorities recently deemed the 
following so important as to justify its transmission by 
cable to this country. Notice the authoritative manner in 
which God's name is used, and that too with reference 
only to the worldly welfare of the clergy. Could profanity 
be worse than this ? It is also an example of the intellec- 
tual sop fed to their supporters : 

EXHIBITION OF JOSEPH'S COAT AT TREVES. 
[Special Cable.] 
Berlin, March 2 [1891]. The Roman Catholic inhabit- 
ants of the Rhineland and Westphalia are greatly excited 
over the proposed exhibition at Treves of the holy coat of 
Joseph. The clergy publishes a report that "God allows 
the exhibition only when a special triumph of the church 
is expected." This time the recall of the Jesuits and the 
restitution of clerical salaries sequestrated during the Kul- 
turkampf are expected. The last exhibition was in 1845. 
The date for that of this year has not been fixed. 



THE SAFE SIDE. 433 

So in religion. There is a limit to our power to 
reverence and realize the existence of God, and 
our religious faculties will draw those feelings out 
to the full extent of those limits. Therefore all 
the divinity that is given to Christ is taken from 
God. Christianity does not increase the religious 
feelings; it simply divides them. In believing 
in Christ Christians do not exhibit more religion 
than those who believe in God alone, and, if Christ 
is not what they claim for him, they exhibit vastly 
less. In order to make a god of Christ they rob 
the Almighty of part of the attributes and glory 
that are His alone. 

In just the degree that a Chnstia?t is a believer in 
Christy he is an unbeliever in God, 

In just the degree that Christ is a savior^ God is a 
failure. 

It is asserted that it is the safe side of this ques- 
tion to thus defame and partially ignore the Al- 
mighty and to act upon the possible truth of Chris- 
tian explanatory doctrines, in face of the fact that 
the crimes and wickedness committed in its cause 
greatly surpass the sum total of all other cruelties 
known in history, not alone in the wars it led to, 
but in the cruelties practiced by Christians upon 
other Christians because of difference upon trifling 
points of doctrine, questions that in no way take 
any part whatever in regulating our conduct for 
our good. Any attempt to enumerate those horrors 
would but weaken the account, for they extended 
through many centuries and reach so near our time 
28 



434 THE SAFE SIDE. 

that even now a picture of a man burning at a 
stake or enduring other torture is recognized as a 
religious picture. Darwin states that those crimes 
were so great as to have effected a deterioration 
in the intelligence of the human race. He says: 

During this same period the Holy Inquisition 
selected with extreme care the freest and bold- 
est men, in order to burn or imprison them. In 
Spain alone some of the best men, those who 
doubted and questioned — and without doubting 
there can be no progress — were eliminated during 
three centuries at the rate of a thousand a year. 

Buckle more fully shows the complete success 
of the Church in securing power over the minds 
of the Spaniards, and that in the use of that power 
the people were degraded and reduced to the low- 
est degree of poverty, ignorance, and wretched- 
ness. 

The revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew, the cruelties of the 
Spaniards in the Netherlands, the Inquisition, etc., 
created a sympathy for the Protestants that ob- 
scured their bigotry and intolerance. They were 
seemingly, though not actually, contending for 
free religion. Being in revolt against the Catho- 
lic Church, they were necessarily usually on the 
defensive and seldom in a position to be aggres- 
sive ; but in the few instances in which they were 
in power they exhibited such a spirit as to raise 
a doubt whether, upon equal footing in Europe, 
they would have shown themselves much, if any, 
less cruel than the Catholics. 



THE SAFE SIDE. 435 

Nor do those doctrines in our day give any in- 
creased peace of mind where any increase is needed. 
The unnatural attendance of large numbers at 
noonday prayer and evening meetings, as well as 
at two or three services on Sundays, is never 
brought about by religion alone. . Those excessive 
acts of devotion expose the fact that within the 
system fear still predominates over all other feel- 
ings. Although of late years many in the Church 
are ashamed of their eternal-torture doctrine and 
try to modify it, yet the words upon which it is 
based cannot be expunged from the Bible, and 
those orthodox believers having large caution are 
haunted with that possibility and in secret fear 
are driven to those useless exercises. Their con- 
science may be clear so far as their own acts are 
concerned, but the book for which they have such 
superstitious awe has terrible words in it, that no 
ingenious sophistry of theologians or pretense of 
loving kindness can wipe away. Many of those 
dreadful words were the utterances of Christ him- 
self. Few were to be saved and the mysterious 
allusions to the elect throw some doubt upon even 
the sanctifying effect of faith itself. 

A man somewhat wanting in self-esteem, having 
average or large caution and undoubting faith in 
the Bible, cannot by the most conscientious gov- 
ernment of his everyday life ever free himself 
from doubts as to his future state, and if his self- 
esteem be very deficient the doctrines of Chris- 
tianity will be a lifelong terror to him. To such 



43^ THE SAFE SIDE. 

men never for a moment have its teachings been 
"glad tidings of great joy." The very pretense 
of it is begotten in fear. The heaven of the New 
Testament is but flattery to the Almighty. It is 
heaven by not being hell. It is not that it is so 
much a place of. bliss as that it is not a place of 
torment. Belief in a future existence, accompa- 
nied by so much uncertainty and terror as Chris- 
tianity teaches, brings with it no joy and the mind 
that is burdened with it would find relief in the 
conviction that there is no future life at all. 

But there are just such saintly deaths and just 
such unhappy ones as old churchmen delighted 
to depict, though the respective classes in which 
they occur are not always as represented. Here 
again it is that churchmen have claimed as their 
work feelings that have no basis in religion what- 
ever. The sole cause of happiness and confidence 
in the future on the part of those believers who 
do have that confidence is self-conceit. Who are 
meant by the elect is always clear to the self-con- 
ceited. They never have doubts upon that point 
and are equally indulgent to themselves in the 
certainty of forgiveness for their own constantly 
recurring shortcomings. Some of the most saintly 
deaths of vv^hich we have accounts have been those 
of most odious murderers upon the gallows, while 
on the other hand there are instances of men, 
whose whole lives had been as perfect as a most 
sensitive conscience could make them, who on 
their deathbeds were still haunted by their life- 



THE SAFE SIDE. 437 

long doubts and fears as to their future state, fears 
that were caused by a terrible belief accompanied 
with a too poor opinion of themselves. 

Throughout the Christian era the feeling of self- 
esteem has at all times taken an immeasurably 
greater part in the Christian system than religion. 
The enormous egotism of the ancient Jews " was 
the mud in which the foundation of that system 
was laid; it was the chief cause of the intolerance 
and cruelty which Christians practiced upon one 
another through long ages; and it is the only 
faculty that admits of a man's believing that he 
has been "called of God to preach the gospel." 
It is the most prominent characteristic of the 
greater part of the priesthood to-day. 

The action of men — particularly public men — 
is seldom, if ever, governed by but one object, 
even though but one may have first awakened that 
action. Every faculty of the mind will assert it- 
self when its particular function is touched upon. 
It is very common for certain faculties to awake 
action that later becomes governed by stronger 
faculties wholly disconnected from the original 
designs. A large part of the laws of every nation 
at the present time is but the slow growth of 

^ I do not wish to be understood as representing that the 
Jews were more egotistic than their neighbors. Egotism 
was a marked characteristic of the ancients and in the most 
remote historical period it was the sole basis of some of their 
wars, the victors sometimes gratifying that faculty by sim- 
ply exacting a small annual contribution of salt as an ad- 
mission of their superiority. 



438 THE SAFE SIDE. 

regulations made to guard against this mental 
peculiarity. How often do we see the public 
spirit or patriotism that excites a man to action 
become overpowered by more powerful personal 
motives when his original disinterested exertions 
have brought him into office. 

It is the same with the church : it has at all 
times supplied as wide a field for ambition, wealth, 
and social power as any nation could present and 
necessarily all the various faculties appertaining 
to those various ends have taken part in conduct- 
ing its affairs. In that government there have 
been a larger number of active participants than 
in any civic government and more thought has 
been expended upon its regulations than has been 
given to the laws of any nation. Its dignitaries 
too have met from time to time in even greater 
solemnity and pomp than that in use at any court. 
The minds of those men in every generation of the 
Christian era have been intent upon an object, 
and the preponderance of intellect employed must 
necessarily have secured a due proportion of suc- 
cess, the great age of the system alone proving 
that. To know, then, the dominating influence 
that actuated those men, we must look to the na- 
ture of their success. No matter of imposing cer- 
emonies, and numbers, and time, and learning, 
and pious protestations can in the least offset the 
overwhelming testimony of the actual work turned 
out. Only the completed work is proof. 

Those men have proclaimed that they were 



THE SAFE SIDE. . 439 

Spreading that which was "glad tidings of great 
joy," but terror has been the one and almost only 
mental state they labored to produce. They said 
it was to be "peace on earth," but it has been a 
constant source of wrangles and wars. They said 
their religion — their labors — was "good will 
toward men," but the hatred, tortures, and butch- 
eries within their religious system surpass all 
known outside of it and make much of its history 
an appalling horror. They tell us, too, with pi- 
ous unction, of the Christian s hope, but there is 
no greater hope a man can have than the hope 
that the state of future existence as taught in that 
system is not true. In short the failure in the ef- 
fect it was claimed that system would -produce is 
as great as the number within its teachings is 
large. 

But in face of this failure the clergy have met 
with unparalleled success in securing wealth and 
social and political power. It can be said literall)'- 
that all the wealth of the world has passed through 
their hands, and they have even been in posses- 
sion at one time of a large proportion of all the 
property in Europe. Their success in that respect 
is equal to the magnitude of their exertions and the 
intellectual ability employed. This vast wealth 
and its attending dignity are tangible things, per- 
ceptible to the senses at all times, throughout all 
Christendom, and they impress the mind with far 
greater power than can a mere matter of senti- 
ment or opinion, which is all there is to show for 



440^ THE SAFE SIDE. 

the pretended effects of Christianity. It is an 
inherited opinion and exists only in the mind. 
Their utter failure is obscured by the brilliancy 
of their success in securing worldly goods and 
honors for themselves. Whatever they may say to 
the contrary, the results of their work prove that 
the personal interest of the priesthood has at all 
times secretly, often unconsciously, predominated 
over all other considerations. The lovable charac- 
teristics of a moderate percentage of the clergy do 
not alter the fact that the minds of the great bulk 
of them have been so intent upon their comfortable 
places that those comfortable places and Christian- 
ity have grown to be to them one and the same 
thing. 

We do not ourselves always know the propor- 
tion of the various influences that govern us, and 
we are often led into unjust acts through an exag- 
gerated idea of the part which some disinterested 
motive may have taken ; hence much that is seem- 
ingly hypocrisy is not hypocrisy, but is simply 
self-ignorance ; and it is possible the latter condi- 
tion may be the state of mind of a large part of 
those who have mistaken their love of ease and 
social power for self-sacrificing religion. 

A merchant may declare that his inch measure 
is a yard and that his flimsy cloth is impervious to 
wind and weather, and vast numbers may believe 
that only the impure doubt his word. As long as 
their belief in his integrity is only a question of 
trade, his goods may be freely bought with noth- 



THE SAFE SIDE. 44 1 

ing to show that his measure is not the true stand- 
ard. But when in time those goods come to be 
used no amount of faith in his honesty could then 
hide the fact that his credulous customers had 
nothing with which to hide their nakedness. 

So with Christianit}^: history, science, experi- 
ence, everything has been falsified that its false 
standard of excellence might be sustained. It has 
had entire control of education and has successfully 
made its ethics the standard of purity. In the mere 
exercise of that wealth and power there was nothing 
but their assertions as to the efficacy of that stand- 
ard in proof of its truth. 

But ever}^ year's experience makes more and 
more conspicuous the worthlessness of those ficti- 
tious virtues in protecting us from wrongs. There 
are corruption and crime in abundance committed 
by those who have unquestioning faith in their 
salvation through Christ. Our penitentiaries are 
filled with them. From the saintly dying mur- 
derers upon the gallows to bribed and defaulting 
officials, it is being constantly exposed that prac- 
ticing those false virtues accomplishes nothing. 
When we w^ould avail ourseWes of the advantages 
which those pretended virtues should give and 
whicn have cost us so much, we find ourselves un- 
protected and exposed to every variety of crime 
and corruption committed by those whose faith 
filled all Christian requirements. 

Naturally it would be supposed that evils and 
unhappiness of every nature were the results of 



442 THE SAFE SIDE. 

our own acts, and necessarily those acts must be 
sins, for they beget punishment, and that is all 
the penalty attending the commission of any wicked 
act. On the other hand it would be equally rea- 
sonable to suppose that there was no sin in acts 
that produce no evil consequences. If these two 
suppositions be facts (and they undoubtedly are), 
it is very important that it be known, for it would 
then stimulate an examination of the causes of 
evils and insure their ultimate correction. But it 
will be impossible to discover whether those sup- 
positions are facts so long as we are governed by 
present ideas of right and wrong, for there will be 
no evil consequences following a false sin, while 
on the other hand serious evils follow some acts 
not known to be bad in that system. This has 
produced a supine submission to evils which we 
could have corrected, particularly as the system 
has an explanation for those evils by ascribing 
them to the machination of the Adversary. 

When it is established that, wherever there is 
trouble or unhappiness of an}^ nature, some one or 
more human beings are at fault and that only such 
faults are sins, it will still be a great study to 
fully recognize our responsibility for much of the 
evil that exists. This is in part because some 
consequences are so remote, in part because our 
remedies develop other faults, and also in part be- 
cause we are made to suffer for errors of the pub- 
lic as well as for our own. Some faults of gov- 
ernment, for instance, are exposed and corrected 



THE SAFE side:. 443 

through the misfortunes which they work upon 
innocent parties who are made to suffer for the 
public good. The discipline that thus advances 
the people is necessarily more important than that 
which simply advances the individual, and the 
seeming injustice that accomplishes this by pun- 
ishing a few for the incompetency of the many 
may be amply compensated for in the vast ages of 
a life to come. The operations of nature's laws 
clearly show that all acts are wicked that produce 
evil consequences, and only such acts are wicked. 
Measured by this law, it is one of the greatest 
sins to violate our reasoning faculties, for the con- 
sequences of so doing have been among the most 
serious evils of life. It is clearly demanded of us 
to exercise all our mental powers in the light of 
the highest intelligence which we can bring to 
bear. The question of the divinity of Christ can- 
not be dismissed under the indolent plea that it is 
the safe side to number credulity among the high- 
est virtues. As between the two alternatives of 
that question it is the safe side to reject it. 



CHAPTER XX. 

IMMORTALITY. 



JT is natural that the hundreds of thousands of 
ecclesiastics who are comfortably ensconced in 
their various agreeable places should like to point 
out where there is adequate return for the vast cost 
of their support. In doing this they greatly exag- 
gerate the effect of belief in immortality, a boon 
which they pretend is given only b)^ Christianity. 
But so far as they have taught us of immortal- 
ity it has been mainly through their representa- 
tions of the horrors of hell rather than the happi- 
ness of heaven. If this question could be definitely 
settled, it would make but little difference in the 
conduct of large numbers of people ; if it were set- 
tled in the negative, it would be a happy relief to 
more worshipers in that " religion of sorrow " than 
if the contrary were proved. A little reflection 
will show that it would not do to know of that 
future life too clearly. The duties of the one we 
are in are proportionally important to those in the 
life to come, and a too vivid contemplation of the 
latter might unfit us for the former. That there is 
a future existence, the nature of it, and the bear- 
ing this life has upon it may be reasoned out with 
as much certainty as is either practicable or de- 



IMMORTALITY. 445 

sirable. It is knowledge that is dimly given us. 
To many it is clear enough to brighten this life 
and to stimulate them to a careful discharge of 
their duties; to others it is doubtful enough to 
prevent them from throwing their lives away. 

The point is often made that, if the Bible be 
not the word of God, then we are without evidence 
of a future existence. But if it were the fact that 
only the Bible points to a future life that circum- 
stance would not have the least bearing upon the 
question of the divine origin of that book. It 
would simply be a reason for hoping that it was true, 
but should make us even more critical in its ex- 
amination. A man may say that he owns all the 
country for miles around and that he will deed us 
rich possessions, but his title to the property would 
not be in the least enhanced by our desire for the 
promised wealth. However desirable it may be 
to know that the soul is immortal, we do not make 
it so by making a God of one who is traditionally 
reported to have implied that it was so. Christian- 
ity and the immortality of the soul are two sepa- 
rate and distinct questions, the truth of the latter 
not being dependent upon the truth of 4:he former. 
But it is the custom of churchmen to claim the 
latter as a doctrine peculiarly their own. They 
try to make it appear that none can believe in im- 
mortality and not believe in Christ. One writer 
calls it " a remarkable concession" when such a 
belief was expressed by a theistic author whom he 
described as "an advanced and able thinker." 



44^ THE SAFE SIDE. 

Napoleon Roussel says of Renan : 

Our readers, then, need not be surprised if M. 
Renan, adversary of Jesus as he is, should, never- 
theless, think it wise to preserve a certain faith in 
a future life. 

Such expressions as these are common within 
the system and indicate the deficiency of reason 
which is characteristic of orthodox Christians. 

Christianity gave us no new ideas of immortal- 
ity or of God. Its only originality consists in its 
ideas as to the divinity of Christ and the compli- 
cations consequent thereto ; but it has so success- 
fully blended those complications with the natu- 
rally religious feeling as to produce a mental 
delusion and cause those two widely different 
things to seem to be but one. It is like a vine 
covering a fruit tree, which through eighteen hun- 
dred years has been credited with fruit that was 
borne by the tree alone. 

The evidence of a future existence from a phil- 
osophical point of view has of late received much 
attention. Perhaps one of the best courses of rea- 
soning upon that subject is in a German work, 
Phaedon, by Moses Mendelssohn. The author 
puts into the mouth of Socrates some highly in- 
teresting ideas, tending to prove immortality. 
Carlyle writes in the highest terms of this work 
and says : " Socrates, to our mind, has spoken in 
no modern language so like Socrates as here by 
the lips of thiswise and cultivated Jew." An 
English translation of the reasoning referred to is 



IMMORTALITY. 447 

published in the Democratic Review, vol. 22, 
pages 59, 124, 225. 

The work entitled The Unseen Universe con- 
tains the most original ideas offered in late years 
upon that subject. Its two authors show that we 
are seeing but a short process in creation. It is 
as though we saw laborers passing lumber and 
brick, but did not see or know of the building that 
was being erected. All the energies of nature are 
devoted to the building up of a universe we do 
not see. Profs. P. G. Tait and B. Stewart are 
said to be the authors. 

If this life ends all, then for what purpose were 
all these great worlds made? However vast and 
numerous they may be, their creation and govern- 
ment are not so incomprehensible as the creation 
of the human mind. Measured by our capacity to 
understand, the latter is the greatest w^ork of God 
and the world must have been made for its devel- 
opment. That which involved incomprehensible 
intelligence could not have been incidental to that 
involving comprehensible intelligence. Conse- 
quently, this and all other worlds were created for 
purposes connected with the mind, for no other 
use is made of them, as indicated by the world in 
which we live. If the world was made for man, 
the plan of creation could not have stopped with 
this short, struggling, laborious life. From its 
narrow field no object has been disclosed commen- 
surate with the vast extent and grandeur of crea- 
tion. There must be more than is seen here. Our 



448 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Creator* s designs regarding us ?nust be measured by the 
extent of all his works, and, hence, the wider our 
conceptions of the universe become the greater 
those designs must be and the greater the proba- 
bility that this life is but a part of the process of 
our creation. The fact that our knowledge of a 
future existence is obscured is consistent with the 
proposition just given, for our inexperienced minds 
would be incapable of comprehending those designs 
and any attempt to do so would undoubtedly unfit 
us for the duties of this life, duties that are, neces- 
sarily, as important in proportion as any we shall 
have in the life to come. 

Our feelings of humanity were given us by our 
Maker, and those feelings would prompt us to say 
that, if this life were all, it would have been better 
for most of the human race if they had never been 
born. He would not mock us with feelings and 
understanding that taught us that existence is a 
cruelty. He has given us powers of the mind 
with especial reference to our pleasures and other- 
wise, by His laws, shows that under them He in- 
tended happiness to be the natural state of man. 
The same Being who through so great a time pre- 
pared for us does not now unnecessaril)^ load us 
with trouble. It is all for a purpose, and as 
none is made manifest in this life it must be in 
one to come. 

A belief in a future existence is the basis of all 
good and honorable acts. There have been many 
heroes and heroines who have lived and died in 



IMMORTALITY. 449 

obscurity, but their heroism was such only in the 
light of a life hereafter; otherwise their self-sac- 
rifices and struggles were foolish. Much of that 
which is now honorable and good would be but 
weakness, if all ended with this life. 

Mankind does not freely accept isolated facts. 
One item of knowledge needs to be connected 
with others to be believed. The mind supplies 
numbers of such isolated facts to which too little 
attention has been shown. They cannot be ex- 
plained and as yet stand alone, part of an unknown 
science. One of these facts has often been offered 
as evidence of a future life. It is known that the 
matter composing our bodies changes many times 
over during our lives, but in all those changes the 
mind keeps along with us unchanged and accumu- 
lating knowledge. We remember even trifling 
things that occurred many years before, though 
every ounce composing our bodies at that time 
had long since disappeared. 

The idea has been advanced in explanation of 
this phenomenon that with each thought a grain 
of brain matter is formed which during life keeps 
in the mind that particular item of knowledge. 
Necessarily the amount of matter thus deposited 
would be infinitesimal, as the mind is constantly at 
work, and yet a lifetime does not supply evidence 
of such an accumulation. This brain matter would 
also have to be replaced from time to time through 
the circulation, and this, too, without reproducing 
the thought that caused the original deposit. 
29 



450 THE SAFE SIDE. 

People are killed by thoughts sometimes. They 
die from no hurt or fault of the constitution, nor 
fault of their own minds ; they die simply because 
of knowledge of certain distressing facts and are 
otherwise untouched. People also sometimes be- 
come violently insane through an impression made 
upon the mind in a few moments of time. 

If the above theory be correct, then this infin- 
itesimal portion of matter deposited with each 
thought is, at times, the most powerful poison 
known, for without this deposit the knowledge that 
produced those effects would not have remained 
in the mind. There would still remain, under 
this theory, equally as great a phenomenon to be 
accounted for in the fact that, while some deposits 
kill, others give pleasure. If brain matter with 
such surprising powers of pain and pleasure were 
thus deposited with each thought, it would be as 
great a wonder as the one for which it is intended 
to account. 

Our whole experience here is with reference to 
mental exercise and discipline. This all -impor- 
tant part of us, it is shown in the facts just stated, 
has an existence separate from our bodies, and, 
as it can separate in detail, it is reasonable to sup- 
pose that it can at death separate from the body 
wholly. 

This is one of the chief points made by Mendels- 
sohn. He showed, in substance, that under the 
laws of nature it is not possible to annihilate an 
atom of matter; that all things are subject to 



IMMORTALITY. 45 I 

change and are no moment without change; that 
all changes are gradual ; that the body is dying 
from birth, death being but the culmination of 
that which has long been in progress; that the 
mind throughout this time increases in knowledge 
and all experience has been with reference to it. 
At death, therefore, the mind must continue to 
exist or be annihilated. The doctrine of annihila- 
tion would do violence both to the laws of nature 
and to the changes that have been gradually taking 
place. 

Another feature of the mind is even more mys- 
terious than the one just mentioned. It seems to 
possess powers entirely disconnected from our own 
guidance or else it is acted upon by some invisible 
power. The mind of a person, as an instance, will 
involuntarily call up some acquaintance who has 
long been absent and long out of mind, and that 
person will immediately thereafter meet the lat- 
ter face to face. Incidents of this kind are in the 
experience of thousands under circumstances that 
are often very surprising. People will sometimes 
write letters answering questions that, as it after- 
wards turned out, had been asked by the corre- 
spondent in a letter that was on the way when the 
answer was written. 

A person's eyes will fall upon some word while 
walking or riding, the meaning of which is so ap- 
plicable to his thoughts as often to be startling. 
Some have this experience repeatedly throughout 
their lives. The dreams of some are often most 



452 THE SAFE SIDE. 

perfect allegorical pictures of their affairs and acts 
at the time. They will be, in most instances, su- 
perior to the capacity of the dreamer to formulate 
when awake. 

A few such instances as these may be called 
simply coincidences, but they occur very many 
times during life, and calculation will show that 
the chances of so many such events happening to 
the same person are but as one in many hundreds 
of thousands, and that therefore they cannot be 
so explained away. For the same reason more 
notice should be given to seeming coincidences. 
More attention to these phenomena will prove both 
interesting and instructive. Possibly more would 
have been said of them but for their seemingly 
superstitious nature. But the superstition, if any, 
lies in the explanation ; the facts themselves are 
(at least most of them) well established ; but they 
are isolated facts, as yet unexplained. It is pos- 
sible that experience of this nature is more com- 
mon than we are aware of and that by its study an 
important law of the mind may be discovered. 

The secret of success in life is not fully known 
and may never be. Intelligence, honor, energy, 
etc. , ought to secure success, and they do enough 
to stimulate their cultivation, but they do not as- 
sure it and are often the marked characteristics of 
men who are unsuccessful. Neither are successful 
men always especially distinguished by the pos- 
session of those qualities. It would not do to let 
it be known precisely upon what success could al- 



IMMORTALITY. . 453 

ways be obtained. If, for instance, it be purely a 
question of intelligence, if people were known to 
be successful in the exact ratio of their wisdom, 
then the opinions of such men would be sought 
for and their advice followed upon all questions. 
Their power would be too great. Less successful 
people would employ them to do their thinking 
for them and would be discouraged by the wide 
difference in intelligence as indicated by difference 
in wealth and honors. 

Or, if success were purely a question of hon- 
esty, that circumstance would obscure honesty, as 
there would be no temptation to be otherwise than 
honest. The same principle applies to any fac- 
ulty or combination of faculties. As it is, different 
men are successful in some instances from oppo- 
site qualities, and the causes of success with one 
are the causes of failure with another. When we 
come to follow out in detail the causes of a man's 
success, we find that the combinations to which he 
owed it were partly mental and partly circumstan- 
tial, and often wholly the latter. There is noth- 
ing strange in one fortunate combination of cir- 
cumstances, but the biographies of successful men 
in every rank of life show that with a certain per- 
centage of them fortunate circumstances happened 
repeatedly during their lives. A calculation of 
the chances of many circumstances attending the 
same person always to his advantage will show that 
the probability is but as one to many thousands. 

These peculiar combinations of circumstances 



454 . THE SAFE SIDE. 

are rarely noticed except in successful men, but 
that is because their success makes them promi- 
nent. But those whose attending circumstances 
are as constantly to their misfortune are equally 
as numerous, and together make this kind of ex- 
perience very common. Among these external 
influences affecting various persons' welfare the 
most common one consists in the opinion which 
others have of them as to their capacities. Later 
experience sometimes proves this judgment of 
character to have been wide of the truth, and 
therefore fortunate or unfortunate to the individ- 
ual, as the case may be. 

This feature is not always confined to the opin- 
ion formed by one man. On the contrary, favor- 
able opinions seem to mysteriously accompany 
some men and even to impress everybody that 
hears them. Such men in business never want 
for customers and in politics never lack votes. In 
some instances the public persistently seek indi- 
viduals who are wanting in ambition, while other 
more competent men unsuccessfully devote a life- 
time to courting public favor. Because popularity 
so often attends social, congenial people, we too 
readily assume that that is always the reason for 
it; but in many instances a popular man does not 
possess those qualities and in the case of some 
public men their popularity would be lost if their 
personality were better known. 

We are blinded to these various peculiarities 
because they are not always marked features of 



IMMORTALITY. 455 

successful men. But they are the sole cause with 
some, while the opposite extreme is never an at- 
tendant with any of them. A person possessing 
them is called lucky or unlucky, and this condi- 
tion has been so marked as to have been an ele- 
ment of superstition in all ages. For this reason 
in part it is now looked upon as unintelligent to 
attribute anything to chance. But the peculiar 
fatality so marked in many people is a conspicu- 
ous though isolated fact, none the less true be- 
cause it is unexplained. Those men, also, who 
ewe their successes to this peculiarity naturally 
prefer to have it credited to their intelligence and 
hence do not make known the many fortunate cir- 
cumstances to which they owe those successes. 
Only recently a man died in New York who had 
made a fortune of many millions of dollars, of 
whom it was said that " he had a reputation of be- 
ing clairvoyant in all that pertained to the invest- 
ment of capital." 

This peculiar fatality that accompanies some 
people and the seemingly separate intelligence be- 
fore mentioned may both be a manifestation of 
the same power. They are of the same nature 
and it is possible that the law that governs them 
may be discovered. They at least indicate an 
outside influence or power of some unknown na- 
ture and to that degree supply evidence of an- 
other existence. 

Animals are born with certain items of knowl- 
edge. They know where to find their food and 



456 THE SAFE SIDE. 

understand the meaning of certain signs or sounds. 
This knowledge is indispensable at their birth, 
and hence the Creator has planted it in their minds 
without the necessity of experience or instruction. 
Those animals will never have to look higher than 
to their progenitors, and supernatural knowledge 
is given them sufficient to enable their progenitors 
to give them due care. May it not be that our 
higher destiny is also designated by an item of 
supernatural knowledge of a God given us for the 
guiding effect that that knowledge will have upon 
us? The presence of that faculty in the mind (for 
there, seems to be one) may be with that intent and 
points to a future existence. 
Darwin^ says: 

I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief 
in God has been used by many persons as an ar- 
gument for His existence. But this is a rash ar- 
gument, as we should thus be compelled to believe 
in the existence of many cruel and malignant 
spirits only a little more powerful than man ; for 
the belief in them is far more general than in a 
beneficent Deity. The idea of a universal and 
beneficent Creator does not seem to arise in the 
mind of man until he has been elevated by long- 
continued culture. 

The evolution theory does not seem to draw 
sufficient distinction between physical and men- 
tal development. The latter is apparently as- 
sumed to follow the former as a natural conse- 
quence and to be of a secondary nature. But that 
theory has been made clear only as to physical 

^ The Descent of Man, p. 612. 



IMMORTALITY; 457 

evolution. The far more important parallel evo- 
lution of the mind is still an unexplained mystery. 
If the acquisition of each new mental faculty called 
for some new physical power, the evolution of the 
mind could then have been as clearly traced as it 
has been for the body. But there has been but 
slight connection between the two. The physical 
powers, for instance, of the lowest quadruped 
would not have unfitted it for possessing the mind 
of the highest, nor has it been shown that there 
had been any great degree of mental development 
up to the highest animals next to man. Prof. 
Huxley shows that there is more difference be- 
tween the lowest and highest apes than there is 
between the highest apes and man. But this ap- 
plies to the body only. Mental development seems 
to have taken its greatest start after that time. 

The superior mental powers of man did require 
certain physical powers not possessed by any ani- 
mal and it is clear that those physical powers were 
being slowly evolved before the inental powers were 
developed that would require them. Savages possess 
quite the same mental faculties that we do, for 
they may be educated, and neither man nor ani- 
mals can learn matters requiring a faculty which 
they do not possess. We have numerous exam- 
ples of educated Indians and also of negroes. The 
human hand, power to walk erect, and organs of 
speech were physical powers necessary for human 
mental powers, and those physical powers were 
being slowly evolved by animals not possessing 



458 THE SAFE SIDE. 

the faculties for which those physical powers were 
being created. There the thread is broken, but 
when next taken up we find the earth covered with 
men, though they were still living quite as low 
as the higher animals, but possessing the mental 
power to learn that which cannot be learned in the 
absence of the higher mental faculties. They 
were making use of the organs of speech, which 
organs had been fully developed in the ape. ' 

Mathematics could not have been practiced 
without the physical powers of the human hand 
and no condition is known that could have devel- 
oped that mental faculty before that time. 

Darwin admits that he could not account for the 
presence of the musical faculty and some other 
faculties are not satisfactorily accounted for. Nor 
does it follow that, because we can see the circum- 
stances by which any particular faculty is evolved, 
such faculty is an incident of those circumstances. 
On the contrary, those circumstances or conditions 
were made to cause such evolution as they pro- 
duced, as is evidenced by physical development 
preceding the mental development that would re- 
quire it. Hence it was intended that we should 
have the faculties we do have, and hence that in- 
stinctive knowledge of God and a future existence 
is absolutely supernatural knowledge, even though 
it may have been evolved from ignorance and su- 
perstition. All of our faculties are at first igno- 



• Descent of Man, p. 89. 



IMMORTALITY. 459 

rantly used, but with higher intelligence the plain 
uses of each are none the less apparent. Belief in 
cruel and malignant spirits was but the ignorant 
use of a faculty through which we were to be 
made to know that there is a God. 

The power to stand or to walk erect is depend- 
ent upon some involuntary action of the mind. 
We are usually unconscious of this, but let us, 
while standing or walking, be suddenly called 
upon to endure some unusual mental strain and 
we will then feel the relief that sitting will give. 
A criminal, while undergoing examination, is 
more liable to break down if made to stand than 
he would be if permitted to sit. This is suggest- 
ive of the possibility that much of the action of 
the body, such as the circulation, breathing, and 
digestion, is dependent upon some unknown, mys- 
terious, and involuntary mental power. The mind 
is everything, the body comparatively nothing. 
The body is like a scaffolding, by which the struc- 
ture is built; it is the umbilical cord by the sever- 
ance of which we are launched upon our true and 
actual existence. 

All the works of nature are with reference to 
some result ; nothing is lost. It has been shown 
that our experience here is just what our Maker 
intended. We are guided by and exercise our 
mental faculties for just such duties and trials as 
we do have, and, as the all-important existence is 
the one to come, it follows that the experience of 
this life is with especial reference to the one to 



460 THE SAFE SIDE. 

come. Furthermore, we have evidence that such 
is the fact. 

We often hear old people say that it has taken 
one life to learn how to live. This is an impor- 
tant fact, that nearly all feel as they become old. 
We then discover that, at the expense of great loss 
of both time and property, we have learned les- 
sons that would have been invaluable to us when 
young, but which we cannot make use of again. 
Our lives seem largely to have been devoted to 
learning that which when learned we cannot use. 
But the experience we had was just what our nat- 
ural mental qualities led to, and, therefore, the 
lessons we learned it was intended we should learn ; 
and as we cannot make use of the knowledge thus 
acquired in this life it must be that it w^as experi- 
ence with reference to the life to come.' 



^ Soon after the preliminary edition of this book was is- 
sued Dr. Wallace's last work, Darwinism, was published 
in London. It was a source of great satisfaction to me to 
discover that unconsciously I had run parallel with so dis- 
tinguished a writer. The following is the closing paragraph 
of that book : 

We thus find that the Darwinian theory, even when car- 
ried to its extreme logical conclusion, not only does not 
oppose, but lends a decided support to, a belief in the 
spiritual nature of man. It shows how man's body may 
have been developed from that of a lower animal form 
under the law of natural selection ; but it also teaches us 
that we possess intellectual and moral faculties which 
could not have been so developed, but must have had an- 
other origin ; and for this origin we can only find an ade- 
quate cause in the unseen universe of Spirit. 



CHAPTER XXL 

SUPERNATURAL SUPERVISION. 



HERBERT SPENCER says that ''we every- 
where see fading away the anthropomorphic 
conception of the Unknown Cause. " 

Coincident with the loss, one by one, of all 
former ideas of God, there has grown up a knowl- 
edge of his works that magnifies the wisdom and 
grandeur of a Creator far bej^ond all former con- 
ception of him, and particularly far above the 
capacities of the so-called inspired writers. Our 
inability to understand how there can be a Supreme 
Being proves nothing. The reasons for believing 
that we are under the guidance of supernatural 
wisdom are much greater than ever known before, 
while the reason for unbelief has its base in that 
ungratified curiosity that cannot accept isolated 
unexplained facts. The sum of all arguments 
against the existence of a God and of our own im- 
mortality amounts to but an expression of disbe- 
lief. Because men cannot comprehend how there 
can be a God, as viewed through the small number 
of nature's laws that have been discovered, they 
do not believe. Even much of that which we 
think is explained is not explained. We have in 
many places linked many facts together and built 



462 THE SAFE SIDE. 

Up quite a system ; nevertheless that system will 
have its imperfections and will border on the 
supernatural. 

We do not know, for instance, enough of the 
laws governing the bodies of our planetary system 
to account for their exactness in all the details of 
motion, distance, heat, etc. The range of tem- 
perature in which we live is comparatively very 
narrow, and but a slight variation in any of sev- 
eral of nature's laws would vary that range suf- 
ficient to destroy every living thing upon the face 
of the globe. In numerous other regulations life 
is dependent upon equally as delicate a balance, 
nor do we know that such exact balance is wholly 
secured by natural laws. It is probable that, 
while the laws do most, supervision is still neces- 
sary. 

The Christian system is itself the cause of much 
unbelief in a God on the part of those who have 
rejected its doctrines. It has so blended the name 
of Jesus Christ with God and impressed upon the 
mind its false virtues and false sins as religion that 
when an unbeliever can no longer accept that 
system he does not awake to the broad distinction 
existing between belief in God and belief in Jesus 
Christ. Through association of ideas the absurdi- 
ties of that system seem alike to be attached to be- 
lief in a future existence and in a God. The truth 
has been degraded by that which is false, and all 
has been rejected together. That "peace has no 
history" is true only so far as history relates to war. 



SUPERNATURAL SUPERVISION. 463 

It is the same in a controversy; we have nothing 
to say upon the subject in dispute to those who 
agree with us. I regret the necessity of objecting 
in any way to the sentiments of Col. Ingersoll, the 
leader in the liberal movement of the past twenty 
years. Within the Christian system it is held that 
only through it are we made to believe in a future 
existence and in the Deity, and, per contra^ that all 
evidence favoring that belief is equally evidence 
of the truth of Christianity. But Christianity 
presents no evidence upon that point; it simply 
demands that we credulously accept the traditional 
implications of the gospels as sufficient confirma- 
tion. Outside of that system there has been but 
little written pro and con upon that subject. 
Hence the argument which Col. Ingersoll makes 
upon the negative side of that question is quite 
the only one I can quote. He says: 

I cannot see why we should expect an infinite 
God to do better in another world than he does in 
this. If he allows injustice to prevail here, wh)'- 
will he not allow the same thing in the world to 
come? If there is any being with power to pre- 
vent it, why is crime permitted ? If a man standing 
upon the railway should ascertain that a bridge 
had been carried off by a flood and if he also knew 
that the train was coming filled with men, women, 
and children, with husbands going to their wives 
and wives rejoining their families, if he made no 
effort to stop that train, if he simply sat down by 
the roadside to witness the catastrophe and so re- 
mained until the train dashed off the precipice and 
its load of life became a mass of quivering flesh, 
he would be denounced by every good man as the 



4^4 THE SAFE SIDE. 

most monstrous of human beings. And yet this 
is exactly what the supposed God does. He, if he 
exists, sees the train rushing for the gulf; he gives 
no notice. He sees the ship rushing for the hid- 
den rock; he makes no sign. And he so con- 
structed the world that assassins lurk in the air, 
hide even in the sunshine; and when we imagine 
that we are breathing the breath of life we are 
taking unto ourselves the seeds of death. 

Rev. D. H. Hamilton, in his work upon Mental 

Science, states that — 

Nature alone [meaning without God, as though 
that were possible] in the universe is dark, greedy, 
and ghastly ; a monster and an atheist, knowing 
nothing and proof of nothing; ever living by 
breeding and devouring her own offspring; a most 
unnatural nature, to which life is death and death 
life; a nature which is not nature at all, because 
alone and without God and man. 

The first of those writers, as is well known, is 
not convinced that there is a God, while the re- 
ligion of the latter is a quadripartite complication, 
in which the control of human and animal nature 
is represented to have been usurped by the devil. 
Between blankness in ideas of the Creator and 
ideas that are insulting to Him, those men both 
stand upon the same platform in their opinion as 
to God's supervision of terrestrial affairs. Those 
who presume to criticise His laws must remember 
that all of them were not 'made solely with refer- 
ence to our individual wants or the wants of a 
single generation. Our love of life and the hu- 
mane ideas which it engenders are of a purely 
local nature ; though common to all, they are for 



SUPERNATURAL SUPERVISION. 465 

the good of the individual only; but the comments 
just quoted illustrate the fact that those natural 
but local ideas seem to conflict with other more 
important laws made for the far-distant future, 
which is as much under our Creator's care as the 
present. 

We know that sooner or later we must die, but 
no one holds up that certainty of death as a cruelty. 
Death is not acceptable to us, whether in old age 
or by accident, the difference being only a ques- 
tion of time, and the cruelty, therefore, if any, 
consists in God giving us less of what he might 
have given more. We speak of death by old age 
as a natural death ; but, now th at the great law of 
the survival of the fittest, in the struggle for ex- 
istence, is understood, it is a question whether 
death by old age is any more natural than death 
through man's incompetency; and with the lower 
order of animals — as fishes, for instance — the most 
natural death is to be swallowed by their progeni- 
tors or other large fish. Even with animals, the 
struggle for existence is not wholly physical, and 
with increasing intelligence the proportion of in- 
tellectual competition increases until, in our time, 
that competition is mostly intellectual. Those 
people who die by disease before old age die as 
much through human ignorance as those who lose 
their lives by accidents, and the same reason 
which accounts for God's noninterference to 
prevent such deaths also accounts for His not in- 
terfering to prolong the lives of those who lose 
30 



466 THE SAFE SIDE. 

them through man's neglect to acquire the knowl- 
edge that is within his reach. Death from old 
age renders no service to human progress, but 
death through man's incompetency exposes that 
incompetency and stimulates to its permanent cor- 
rection. 

The fact that much of the effect of our igno- 
rance falls upon innocent parties only makes our 
general responsibility the more marked. We are 
responsible, individually and collectively. The 
evil effects of public errors strike promiscuously 
among the whole people and stimulate the whole 
to their correction. However serious sorrows and 
misfortunes may be to the individual, they are, 
nevertheless, serious only as viewed from the nar- 
row limits of this life. In the light of an eternal 
future, they sink into insignificance and, consider- 
ing the advancement they superinduce, they can- 
not be called misfortunes. We are reaping the 
benefits of the troubles of past generations and 
we must bear our proportion for those to come. 

The supposed omnipresence of God is a part of 
the Christian system, those within it having no 
discretion upon that question as it is taught in the 
gospels. The guiding nature of the laws by which 
we are developed ought to be satisfactory evidence 
that by those laws are we mostly guided in that 
development. It is not necessary to be shown the 
way when the route has been so laid out that the 
great body cannot go astray. There may be — 
probably is — supervision, not, necessarily, to al- 



SUPERNATURAL SUPERVISION. 467 

ways prevent trouble, but to temporarily increase it 
at times- for the purpose of precipitating a needed 
reform ; but it is questionable if there is near, at 
all times, a supernatural power capable of pre- 
venting accidents, even if so disposed. Spiritual- 
ists do assert that supernatural information, in 
such cases, has often been given, many instances 
of which are related by Robert Dale Owen in his 
work Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World ; 
but, even if those accounts could be satisfactorily 
shown to be true, they still would be far too in- 
frequent to affect the rule. 

There are still other reasons why this law should 
be enforced. Every living species upon the face 
of the globe, on land or in the sea, could, in a 
comparatively short space of time, overrun the 
whole world if its increase were not held in check. 
The same Creator that made the law whereby they 
procreate their species also made other laws that 
hold their numbers down to a certain proportion. 
In the case of some of the animals, the latter law 
is seen as clearly as the former, and the human 
race is, undoubtedly, held in check by similar laws. 
We multiply fast enough to have overrun the whole 
world beyond its power of support even within the 
historical period, and yet the human race at all 
times, like all other animals, bears an even pro- 
portion to the facilities for its support. It would 
be a horrible thought for our race, at some future 
time, to be obliged to take into consideration the 
question of depleting the population because of its 



468 THE SAFE SIDE. 

having nearly reached the world's limit of support. 
And yet such a condition would be reached if even 
one of the several laws that keep the population 
down should be suspended. Its suspension would 
be a far greater inhumanity than its enforcement, 
even though it were the law that makes our in- 
competency lead to death. 

A better knowledge of the laws of health has 
increased the average duration of human life, and 
the percentage of loss of life through ignorance 
must be much less, and these facts have set some 
men to speculating upon the possible overpopula- 
tion of the world. Speculations of this kind spring 
up from time to time, but they are idle and use- 
less. That part of our government does not appear 
to have been left in our keeping, any more than 
the movement of the world itself. The question 
of overproduction of human beings will never be 
presented to us for solution. As far as we are 
concerned, we must have all the human feeling 
we do have and protect life to the best of our abil- 
ity. Developments of late years exhibit God's 
far-reaching oversight in this, for as the loss of 
life through ignorance decreases with intelligence 
the births also decrease. We need not fear an 
overpopulation of the earth, for the laws that pre- 
vent it keep our intellect bright and clear through 
our efforts to counteract them. 

Every being that walks is living, breathing 
evidence that there is a God. The knowledge of 
man is not equal to even understanding our own 



SUPERNATURAL SUPERVISION. 469 

mechanism, and it is surprising that any can be- 
lieve that the laws that made us were not made 
by a Supreme Being for that purpose. There 
have been at least two lines of development quite 
distinct from each other that were necessary for 
man's existence and both reached the necessary 
development at the same time. While man has 
been progressing from a low degree, the earth has 
also been fitting for his habitation. The prompt- 
ness of man's appearance when the earth was 
ready for him is as yet an unexplained mystery. 

It is a law of nature that nearly everything shall 
expand with heat and contract with cold. But 
water expands from both heat and cold (as usually 
expressed) and without this deviation in that law 
the earth would be quite uninhabitable. If, when 
water congeals, it contracted instead of expanding, 
it would sink as fast as ice was formed until the 
entire body of water was solid ice. The quantity 
would consequently become so large as to greatly 
reduce the temperature of the atmosphere. The 
effect of this would be to bring the frigid zones 
much nearer the equator and reduce the habitable 
part of the globe to narrower limits, if indeed life 
could exist anywhere. 

How wide the range of heat may be, from a to- 
tal absence of caloric to the opposite extreme, may 
not be known, but it is a number of thousand de- 
grees; and life is only possible within a narrow 
range of scarcely one hundred degrees each way 
from the freezing point and is confined to only 



470 THE SAFE SIDE. 

about half those limits. That degree of heat 
where water will expand into steam and that other 
degree where it will expand into ice are very near 
together as compared to the wide range of heat 
and cold ; the range is but little wider than that 
of the temperature necessary for our existence. 
This deviation from nature's usual laws at such 
a delicate point could not have been by chance; 
it must have been an especial regulation of a Su- 
preme Being, and, therefore, made with reference 
to human life. 

It is true that the expansion when ice is formed 
is very small, but this fact only increases the proba- 
bilities of its being a special deviation made to 
overcome the objection referred to. The expan- 
sion is barely enough to make ice float and prevent 
water from congealing to any great depth. 

We see to what enormous proportions animals 
may be developed both in the sea and on land. 
There is no apparent reason why there are not 
equally as powerful birds. In the Oolitic period 
there were varieties of the pterodactyls, a species 
of bat, that had a spread of wings of twenty-seven 
feet, and it is supposed there were some much 
larger. The atmosphere was then, probably, 
denser than it is now, but that can be no reason 
why such animals do not grow to great size in our 
time, for our largest birds fly the highest where the 
air is thinnest. Size, at least, has nothing to do with 
any physical difficulty to be overcome. There 
could have been monsters of the air capable of 



SUPERNATURAL SUPERVISION. 47I 

picking up a man as easily as a hawk does a 
chicken. But if there had been such they would 
have possessed a power over man that would have 
made human development impossible. Even in 
our time, with firearms, such animals would be a 
constant terror, involving precautions in work in 
the field and all isolated positions that would be 
serious enough to greatly cripple us in all the 
affairs of life. The fact that there are no such 
winged monsters as powerful as animals found on 
land and in the seas indicates an especial varia- 
tion in nature's laws, made immediately preced- 
ing the advent of man for our especial safety. 

The originators of Christianity treated the fu- 
ture existence as one exclusively of rewards and 
punishments for acts done here, and all its follow- 
ers since have consequently been obliged to look 
upon it in the same light. Those men were inca- 
pable of bringing their imagination to compre- 
hend more than a moderate length of time and 
hence would not notice the absurdity of placing 
this comparatively trifling existence over one that 
is to be eternal. If there be a future life, then it 
must be the all-important one. It must also be 
that only in that one shall we be completed be- 
ings. We are in process of creation here. This 
life must be a test in which we are tried and fitted 
for the all-important duties of the true existence, 
upon which we only enter when this life ends. 

The few years we live here may be more impor- 
tant than many titnes the same number in the life 



472 THE SAFE SIDE. 

to come and yet be insignificant in comparison to 
the importance of the whole. So, too, with all 
the ends and aims of this life ; there are no values 
it can give in health, pleasures, and glories that 
could offset some slight advantage that is to con- 
tinue for many ages. It is not reasonable to 
suppose that our acts here can cloud our eternal 
future. 

Such ideas as the creation of the heavens and 
the earth in six days, an eternal existence of tor- 
ture, and the omnipresence of God are all such as 
could only emanate from half-civilized man, and 
only through a superstition that makes those ideas 
sacred do they find supporters in the present day. 
If God were omnipresent there would be no occa- 
sion for some of His laws, for He could then guide 
each and all in detail. That " He numbers the 
hairs of our head " and " every blade of grass that 
grows " is an idea in exact keeping with the one 
that represents Him as making the world in a 
day. 

This life must naturally be and undoubtedly is 
a reflection of the one to come. We see here a 
wide range of conditions of adversity and pros- 
perity in close proximity. Therefore, in the next 
world we shall see similar conditions on a far more 
extended scale, and in those widely different posi- 
tions there will be abundant room for all the re- 
wards and punishments that this life calls for. If 
a man can struggle so much and work up so much 
feeling here for positions of wealth and honors that 



SUPERNATURAL SUPERVISION. 473 

can be enjoyed but a few years, then how great 
can our interest be in a life that is eternal and 
where the range of those positions is vastly wider. 
Sentiments of this nature will have all the stimu- 
lating and restraining effect that the religious 
faculty can give, and that is all it is required to 
do. 

When we reflect upon the possibility of there 
being inhabitants upon other planets than our own 
in the solar system we are obliged to base our con- 
clusions upon what we know of nature's laws upon 
the one world in which we live. We are con- 
fined to an equally narrow limit in our speculations 
as to a future life. If there be such an existence 
we shall be guided by the same Creator who guides 
us here, and we may reasonably infer that plans 
which He found necessary here may be duplicated 
there. In this life individuals are sometimes born 
with certain physical defects. They may be defi- 
cient in a limb or be blind or deaf and dumb and 
still live. Others again are born dead because of 
the absence of some organ without which life is 
impossible. There may be physical defects, but 
a certain combination is indispensable to secure 
life. It would be an exact parallel if a future ex- 
istence were dependent upon a certain combination 
of mental faculties. There may be mental de- 
ficiencies affecting the individual only, but it is 
possible that a future life is dependent upon 
the possession of those mental faculties that would 
insure the rights and safety of others. This re- 



474 THE SAFE SIDE. 

quired development would naturally be applicable 
to the human race only. 

If the Almighty should set forth His works and 
will in characters that men could read, He would 
not in doing so discriminate in favor of any lan- 
guage, people, or age. His book would be acces- 
sible to all people in all times, the only require- 
ment being that reasonable intelligence be exer- 
cised by those who read it ; and with increasing 
knowledge it would become more and more intel- 
ligible to the reader. His imprint would be in 
this, that the discoveries of later generations would 
never conflict with those that preceded them. 

Such a work is awaiting readers. In the rocks 
He has bound a careful and minute account of crea- 
tion, many chapters of which mankind even now 
has read. In that awe-inspiring work we find 
great reason for — not humility — but pride, in not- 
ing the vast ages that were employed to create man, 
and in that pride we are stimulated to try to make 
ourselves worthy of the love and power that have 
so carefully and patiently made us. 

But, however instructive and important that 
knowledge may be, it is yet but a history of the 
past and is not sufficient for our wants in the fu- 
ture. We see by it the paths that have led to the 
present wonderful results; but, to follow these 
paths and carry out the yet-to-be-developed designs 
of our Creator, we need that which will in part 
take the place of a knowledge of those designs, 
and this we have in the guiding nature of the va- 



SUPERNATURAL SUPERVISION. 475 

rious faculties of the mind. It is the only way that 
that knowledge could be given us and only a God 
could so give it. Without them mankind, even in 
one generation, would be annihilated, but with 
them the human race, like an army, is held in rank 
and file and being led step by step to the great 
uses for which he has designed us. 

The superstition that retards this progress by 
decrying and misconstruing the meaning of those 
especial mental tendencies, and substitutes there- 
for false virtues, false sins, and false histories, is in 
direct enmity with that Being whom its followers 
pretend to worship ; and one of their greatest crimes 
is in teaching that even if wrong it is the safe side 
of the question to follow them. There is safety 
only in a correct interpretation of our Creator's, 
designs. Our most religious duty and greatest 
progress consist in discovering our own powers 
and our greatest happiness is found in exercising 
them 



THE END 



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